Goosebumps the Movie Read online

  Stine totally ignored her. He was staring at the floor, counting footsteps like he was following a treasure map or something. And maybe he was, because then he stamped hard on a floorboard and it popped open. Beneath it was a pile of credit cards, passports, and a whole lot of cash.

  “We’re not a normal family,” he told Hannah, rifling through the cards. “Now pack your things.”

  I stood there in the doorway, silently rooting for her to fight back some more. But instead, she headed over to the fireplace and reached her hand up into the flue. She pulled out a duffel bag.

  Had these people never heard of closets?

  “I am so over this,” Hannah snapped.

  Stine growled something under his breath. It sounded like, “Teenagers.”

  Maybe if Hannah couldn’t convince him, I should give it a try.

  I took a couple steps into the house.

  A couple noisy steps, I guess, because Stine snapped up at the sound, grabbed a candelabra—and hurled it straight at my head.

  Or, rather, about ten feet to the left of my head.

  “I could’ve killed you!” Stine said when he realized it was me.

  I laughed, looking at the dent in the wall halfway across the room. “Luckily, your aim is terrible.”

  “Why are you still here?” he asked, in a tone that suggested he didn’t care about the answer. “Go home!”

  “No.” Even if she came with a terrifying monster and an even more terrifying dad, I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to Hannah forever. Also, I really did want some answers. “Not until you explain what’s going on.”

  “I can’t explain it.”

  “We were almost just eaten by Frosty the Snowman!” I yelled. “So … try.”

  It was a miracle, but he actually did. “Okay, look, when I was younger, I suffered from terrible allergies that forced me indoors,” he said, pushing his glasses up higher on his nose.

  I squinted, trying to imagine a younger, nerdier version of Stine. But that was the thing about grown-ups—it was impossible to see them as anything but old.

  “The other kids would throw rocks at my window and call me names,” he continued. “So I made up my own friends—monsters, demons, ghouls—that would terrorize my town and all the kids that ever made fun of me.”

  Now, that sounded more like the Stine I’d come to know and loathe.

  “They became real to me,” he said. “And then, one day, they actually … became real. My monsters literally leaped off the page! As long as the books stay locked, we’re safe. But when they open … well, you just saw what happened.”

  It was totally, utterly unbelievable. But given what I’d just seen, I had to believe it.

  “I’m allergic to dust mites,” Champ said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “I’m just saying, I have allergies, too, so I understand.”

  Telling his story seemed to have used up all the strength Stine had left. He didn’t even bother to tell Champ to shut up. “I’ve already told you too much,” he said, sounding defeated. “Hannah, come on.”

  He marched up the stairs without even waiting to see if she would obey him.

  She did, of course. When she headed up the stairs, Champ and I followed her. All the way to the room at the end of the dark hallway, Stine’s study, where it all began.

  “Hannah, grab A to M,” Stine ordered, starting to pull books off the shelves. “I’ll grab N to Z. And keep the man-eating plant away from the bug-eyed aliens. You know how—” He stopped, freezing with his hand on one of the spines. “Wait. The manuscripts. One of them is missing!”

  It wasn’t exactly the mystery of the century. I pointed to where Night of the Living Dummy was lying on the floor.

  It was only when Stine picked it up, his face melting into a look of pure horror, that I realized the lock was broken. “No,” he whispered. “Not him …”

  I knew the book was about a ventriloquist’s dummy. It was hard to get too worked up about a silly wooden doll after we’d conquered the abominable snowman.

  That’s when the laughter started. High, almost childlike laughter, echoing through the house.

  The black leather chair at Stine’s desk slowly spun around to face us.

  “No!” Stine screamed. “No! Please—no!”

  “Hello, Papa.”

  It was just a dummy, sure … except there was nothing just about it.

  The thing was less than three feet high, but from its fathomless black eyes to the wicked grin carved across its cheeks, it oozed pure evil. It had thick black eyebrows and a swoop of black hair, just like Stine.

  “How long has it been?” the dummy said, its jaw clacking together with every word.

  “Not long enough,” Stine muttered.

  “Feels like forever to me,” the dummy rasped. Its eyes slid back and forth. “Who are your new friends?”

  Champ and I each took one big step away from Stine.

  “We’re not friends,” I said quickly.

  “Barely know him.”

  Stine smiled stiffly at the dummy. “Slappy, it’s so, er, nice to see you.”

  “Didja miss me?” the dummy asked.

  “Of course I’ve missed you! As much as I missed that cold sore I had last week.”

  Lightning flashed, blinding us all for a second. When my eyes adjusted to the dark again, Slappy was perched on the edge of Stine’s desk. The key to the manuscripts dangled from his hand.

  “Now I can see you better,” the dummy said. “So, what’s the plan, friend? You must’ve brought me out for something fun. Terrorize the locals? Destroy the town? Let’s get silly.”

  Stine picked up Night of the Living Dummy and crept toward Slappy verrrrry slowly. “Yes, Slappy,” he said, holding the manuscript behind his back. “You’ve guessed it. I want to destroy Madison. And I couldn’t do it without you.”

  “Aw, shucks, you’re giving me—what’s the word? Goosebumps!”

  The dummy giggled. It was like nails on a chalkboard.

  “Oh my god, he’s so creepy,” Champ whispered. It was the understatement of the century.

  “You always crack me up,” Stine said, closing in on Slappy. “I’d like to crack you up, too. Into wood chips.”

  “You’re so funny,” Slappy replied. “Remind me to laugh later. Is that really your face? Or did you throw up on your neck?”

  I held my breath. Just a few more steps …

  “Such a clever dummy,” Stine murmured.

  The bushy wooden eyebrows pivoted into an angry expression. “Who you calling dummy, dummy?” Slappy’s eyes locked onto the manuscript. His voice flew to an even higher pitch. “You trying to put me back in?”

  Stine laughed an extremely unconvincing laugh. “Don’t be silly, Slappy. Not when our visit is just starting. Stay right there.” He opened the book.

  “Know how I can tell when you’re lying to me, Papa?” Slappy said. “It’s whenever you speak. You lie more than a shag rug.”

  Suddenly, the overhead light snuffed out, dropping us into darkness.

  A moment later, Slappy lit a match.

  Let’s just say flickering fire didn’t make the guy look less creepy.

  Slappy sat on the edge of the broken window, the Night of the Living Dummy manuscript somehow in his hand. “I’m not going back on the shelf,” he rasped. “Ever. Again.”

  He waved the manuscript in the air. “I love a good story,” he said. “A good book like this lights a flame in my heart.”

  “Wait, Slappy, don’t!” Stine cried as Slappy touched the match to the manuscript. It began to burn.

  Slappy dropped the flaming pages out the window. “I think it’s my turn to pull the strings!” he cackled. “Tonight is gonna be the best story you ever wrote. All your children are coming out to play. Too bad you won’t be alive to read it!”

  Another flash of lightning made me cry out. A crash of thunder. I blinked in the sudden darkness.

  When the lights came back on, Slappy
was gone.

  “OMG,” Champ breathed. “He left.”

  “OMG, he left,” Stine said. But he didn’t sound quite as relieved.

  Then we all realized what he was staring at, and understood why.

  “He took all the books!” Hannah shouted.

  We ran downstairs, thinking maybe we could catch Slappy. He was a three-foot-tall dummy, after all. How fast could he go?

  Fast enough, apparently.

  Stine stopped at the door and buried his head in his hands. “Congratulations. You just released a cruel, destructive, vicious, brilliant ventriloquist dummy with a serious Napoleon complex.”

  It took a second to realize he was talking to me.

  And one more second to get indignant.

  “For the record, I only opened one book,” I reminded him. “I wouldn’t even have done that if someone had just explained the situation to me rather than yelling a bunch of vague threats about bad things and doom!”

  “The snowman knocked a few books to the ground when he got out,” Hannah said. “The lock must have broken.”

  I mouthed a silent thank-you to her for trying, not that it helped much.

  “I’m still blaming him,” Stine said, jabbing a finger at me. “I don’t like you, boy.”

  Never in the history of time had a feeling been more mutual.

  Stine tried to storm out, but the door stuck, which kind of ruined the effect. “It’s locked from the outside.”

  That was … not good.

  I tried a window—no luck. “Locked.”

  Something shimmied past us in the dark. A hulking shadow appeared on the wall behind us.

  I decided I was never opening another book as long as I lived.

  “Out the kitchen door,” Stine urged us. “Go. Now!”

  We stopped dead in the kitchen entryway. The back door had a small doggy flap at the bottom, and it swung open. Standing before it stood a little man in an elf costume. Huh? Wait. I realized I was staring at a lawn gnome!

  I almost laughed. All that panic … for a lawn gnome?

  Even Champ wasn’t intimidated. He stepped in front of us. “This one’s mine.” But before he could toss the gnome out of the house, the dishwasher door popped open, issuing a billow of steam—and two more gnomes.

  Champ stepped back into line. “I, uh, thought there was just one.”

  The ugly little creatures began appearing everywhere.

  One popped out of the trash can. Another peeked out of the cupboard door. Five more leaped out of the drawers, and I was pretty sure I spotted some beady eyes blinking at me from beneath the sink. Before we knew it, we were surrounded.

  Still, I thought, what’s the big deal? Sure, we were surrounded, but we were surrounded by porcelain gnomes.

  “What’s everyone so scared about?” I asked. “They’re just cute little garden—aaah!” A knife zinged straight past my ear, stabbing the wall behind me.

  The gnome closest to me pulled out another shining blade. His eyes glowed red, and I caught the cruel, cold scowl on his bearded face.

  “Oh,” I said.

  One of the gnomes launched itself at Stine, wrapping its little arms around his head and swatting his ears. A second one attached itself to his waist.

  “Ahhh!” Stine whacked at them, to no effect. “Get them off me!”

  I grabbed a frying pan and slammed it at the gnome on Stine’s face—just as Champ smashed a rolling pin into the other one.

  Good news. The gnomes fell off.

  Bad news, Stine fell over, howling in pain.

  Oops.

  Before Stine could climb to his feet, a group of gnomes dragged in a garden hose and started tying up his legs. A battalion grabbed his ankles and started dragging him toward the kitchen oven. Tiny hands spun the heat up to 500 degrees. Stine squirmed and screamed.

  Champ and I struggled to fight our way toward him.

  Hannah shoved a gnome off her father and rammed it into the garbage disposal, face first. Porcelain shards showered the kitchen.

  “Ouch!” I shouted. “That hurts.” I grabbed a Swiffer.

  “Uh, Zach, we can clean up later,” Champ said. But I was already swinging it like a golf club, cracking every porcelain head I could find.

  Champ crawled through my legs and tried to untie Stine. I whacked another gnome, then looked for more—but there weren’t any. We’d smashed them all!

  “Victory over lawn gnomes!” Champ crowed. “And …” He gestured at his suit, which was covered in a fine dusting of porcelain powder. “… I did it in style. Designer suit. Fifty percent off.”

  I took a few deep breaths, trying to wrap my head around the fact that we were still all in one piece.

  Stine hugged Hannah. Hannah hugged me. I hugged Champ, and when Champ hugged Stine, the author didn’t even complain.

  I guess we were all a little giddy with our triumph. Until there was a scratching sound beneath us—the sound of porcelain pieces rattling back to life.

  Slowly at first, then faster and faster, the pieces skidded toward one another like magnets, re-forming into gnomes. They were chipped and dented—and they were angry.

  “Nooooo,” Champ moaned. “No, no, nononono!”

  “We have to get out of here!” I said, though that was pretty obvious. “We need to get to the basement.”

  “It’s locked,” Stine said.

  Uh …

  “I broke the lock,” I admitted.

  “That’s vandalism, young man.”

  I was already racing for the cellar door. “Send me a bill!” I shouted over my shoulder.

  The gnomes chased us across the house as we headed for the basement, nearly trampling one another on our way down the stairs.

  “Watch out for the bear traps!” Stine cried, just in time.

  We hopscotched across the traps. The herd of gnomes stampeded down the stairs. It seemed like there were more of them than ever. But unlike us, they didn’t know about the traps. One gnome after another stepped in between those iron jaws and exploded into a cloud of porcelain shards.

  It wouldn’t stop them—we knew that now. But it would slow them down enough for us to escape.

  Hopefully.

  We raced up the stairs to the outside and burst through the cellar door. Gasping for air, Stine slammed the door behind us and fastened the padlock.

  I would have said something about how he should try to stay in better shape … but I was panting too hard to talk.

  We all stood there on the lawn for a moment, sucking air into our lungs and wondering what we should do next.

  “Why couldn’t you have written stories about rainbows and unicorns?” I asked Stine, once I recovered the power of speech.

  “Because that doesn’t sell four hundred million copies!”

  “Domestic?” Champ asked.

  Stine looked away. “No, worldwide. Still very impressive. Shut up.”

  There was only a sliver of moon, and the snowman had knocked out all the streetlights, but I could see everyone’s faces pretty clearly. Because the air around us was swarming with millions of tiny lights, like fireflies.

  On any other night, it might have been beautiful. On that night? It could only mean that something else was going wrong.

  We followed the glowing cloud to its source—a smoldering pile of what had once been leather-bound manuscripts.

  Stine’s jaw dropped open.

  “He’s burning the books,” Hannah said.

  I didn’t get it. “Why is he doing that?”

  “So there’s no way to put the monsters back inside,” Stine said, sounding like it was the end of the world.

  Given all those books—and all those monsters—maybe it was the end of the world.

  “This is Slappy’s revenge,” Stine said. Then, just for a moment, he brightened. “Slappy’s Revenge—hey, that’s a good title.”

  The man bent over his bike, pedaling hard into the wind. He didn’t even hear the car approaching behind him … not u
ntil it pulled close enough for him to smell its exhaust. Its headlights lit the road stretching ahead of him. Its engine roared. “Go around!” the man shouted, waving his arm. “Cyclists’ rights!”

  The car didn’t speed up or swerve around him. It kept shadowing him, its lights blazing brighter against the night.

  The cyclist glanced over his shoulder, nearly blinded by flashing high beams.

  The man raised a fist. “I’m a lawyer and I will sue!”

  The car swerved abruptly, running him off the road, straight into a ditch. The cyclist lay silent and motionless.

  Inside the car, wooden hands gripped the steering wheel. Wooden teeth clattered together.

  Slappy laughed. “I’m sorry; I cut you off. Someday I should take a driving lesson! But why bother? My feet don’t reach the pedals! Ha-ha-ha!”

  Slappy drove on. He liked this town. He had big plans for it.

  The car window rolled down, and a burning manuscript flew through it, flames showering blazing tracks through the night.

  The road was deserted—there was no one to see the green tendrils sprouting from its pages, each one lined with razor-sharp, man-eating teeth.

  The tendrils grew with breathtaking speed. Soon they were climbing their way up cell towers, snaking their way through and around the town, slowly but surely cutting off Madison from the outside world and whatever help it could provide.

  Slappy drove on. Manuscripts burned and fireballs danced across the highway, each of them unleashing a great and terrible beast on the unsuspecting town.

  In the distance, a woman screamed. Slappy giggled. There would be plenty to laugh about once this night was over. And plenty of delicious screams.

  Slappy was just getting started.

  We drove all over town, searching for Slappy.

  We didn’t find him. All we found was destruction. Smoking ruins, people screaming … the town looked like a war zone.

  I kept trying to call my mom, Aunt Lorraine, anyone. But it was no use.

  “I can’t get reception,” I reported, after the tenth try returned yet another busy signal.

  “Slappy’s taking out all the cell towers,” Stine said. “That’s what I’d do if I were him.”