Tales from the Haunted Mansion Vol. 1: The Fearsome Foursome (10 page)

Willa crossed her arms and stared at her brother. “Chubs. Okay. So you’re crying for Chubs.” She thought about it. She couldn’t let him get away with that one, either. “Crying for Chubs? You hardly looked at him when, well, when he was alive.”

And that’s when the real waterworks began. Billy started to weep. “Because you stole him from me!”

“What?” Willa was appalled. “Why would you say that? I never stole a thing from you—not ever!”

“Yes, you did. Chubs was my pet.
My
Christmas present. I loved him and you took him away. You took him from my room and you never even asked. Never even said you were sorry! Not ever! I hate you, Willa! Not ever!”

“Billy, I didn’t know.”

He stomped off once more, Willa’s attempt at an apology coming too late. The damage was done—Billy was hurt; her friends were gone; Chubs was still deader than dead. Like her mom had said that morning, good times for all.

Now there was nothing left but to clean up. Willa might have waited until morning, but she couldn’t sleep. She was a terrible sister, and just as bad a friend. The next day she would apologize. She would make it up to all of them. Starting with Billy.

She began dismantling the tent, yanking the first stake out of the ground.

Rrrrreeeeech!

It was that sound again.
Give it a rest, doofus!

Willa removed the second stake.

Quark! Quark!
That one sounded more like a bird. Courtesy of Billy’s sound effects, no doubt.

She loosened the third stake. Suddenly, the noises converged, building to a crescendo of inhuman squeals, echoing from somewhere out there. Out where?
Come now, you know where.

And so did Willa. She dropped the stake and picked up the lantern. She had to check it out. To give Billy the satisfaction of giving her one last scare, if that was what he needed. She probably deserved it, too.

She moved through the yard past the mangled veggies, the lantern illuminating her path. Willa arrived at the pet cemetery and tilted the light to get a better view. Chubs’s grave was exactly how Billy had left it. She swung around, bringing light to the three remaining graves.
Uh-oh.
Those were not how she last saw them. They had been excavated.
That, in the cemetery trade, is the proper way of saying that they had been dug up and moved.
Pretty low, even for Billy.

Just then, a gentle breeze rattled Willa’s charms.
Clink.
Goldie the goldfish.
Clink.
Rudy the rabbit.
Clink.
Polly the parrot. They had all been Willa’s pets before Chubs arrived—on a Christmas morning as a gift for Billy.

Wait a minute: Chubs was Billy’s pet!

And then Willa thought back to the witch-bone. To the exact wording she’d used:
I wish my pets could be alive again.
My
pets.

And just as Willa completed her thought, she turned to see them advancing toward her: the zombified remains of a ravenous rabbit, a petrified parrot, and a gruesome goldfish. Her undead pets swarmed her from head to half toe. Willa couldn’t fight them off. They were pecking! Chewing! Slurping!

You see, Willa’s pets hadn’t eaten in years. Not since the last time she’d fed them, and they were very,
very
hungry….

W
illa was still staring at her bracelet
when the old librarian looked up from the page. “Hmmm. That one had
bite
. Critiques? Comments?”

This time there were none. At least, none that were vocalized. But Willa didn’t like what she’d heard, not one bit.
Or is it
bitten?

“I’m done,” she said. “I want to leave. Right now!” Usually, Tim would be the first to follow. But he’d been permanently…benched.

Willa took the initiative, snatching the candelabrum from the mantel. She searched high and low for a way out, finding nothing but bookshelves. She craned her neck, looking up at the ceiling. There was a skylight. She could hear rain pitter-pattering against the glass.

She slid the ladder underneath. “I’m a good climber. We can get out through there.”

The librarian shook his head with mock despair. “Permanently sealed, I’m afraid, by Mistress Constance on her wedding night. The glass is reinforced. Unbreakable. Drafts, you know. They’re magic carpets for bacteria.”

But there had to be a way out, and Willa was determined to find it. She carried the candelabrum into the shadows where they’d first arrived. “We were here,” she reasoned. Willa looked back at Noah and Steve for confirmation. As previously mentioned, Tim was still on the disabled list. But the other boys had nothing much to say, either. None of it made sense. Willa was pushing against a solid wall. “There’s a passageway, I know it.” She made a fist and gave the wall three good thumps.

She waited a second. And wouldn’t you know it? Something
thump-thump-thump
ed back. “Who’s there?”

“More like
what’s
there?” questioned Noah.

The librarian expounded: “The foundation is constantly settling. Or is it
unsettling
? I never do get that right.”

Willa was ready to explode! “That wasn’t the foundation and you know it! Somebody knocked. I know a knock when I hear one.” And Willa thought,
Where there’s knocking, there are people
.
And where there are people, there’s…

“Heeeelp!” She cried out to whoever might be listening. But Willa’s voice didn’t carry. It simply died right there in the room.

Willa would not accept defeat. She went back to Tim, her old standby, and knelt eye to eye with him. “I’m going to climb that shelf, Tim-bo.” She pointed to the tallest bookcase. “I just need a boost.” Willa reckoned she could make it all the way to the top and signal for help.

Unfortunately, Tim was in no condition to give a boost to anyone, not even his best pal. Before Willa could ask, Noah and Steve stepped over to volunteer. Joining her at the base of the bookcase, they interlaced their fingers and gave Willa a lift. The librarian watched, doing nothing to deter them.

Determined as ever, Willa made it to the very peak of the bookshelf, the skylight an arm’s length away. It had some sort of antique crank on it. Willa stretched, clasping the lip of the bookcase with her left hand while managing to crank open the skylight with her right. The chill night air entered the library.
So the skylight can open,
she thought.

Some rain sprinkled Willa’s face. She opened her mouth, startled. But the taste was amazing. It tasted like freedom. She offered her friends a final thumbs-up and shinnied her way through the opening, Noah and Steve watching as Willa’s legs vanished into the night.

In exactly two seconds, a figure appeared in the library, shuffling past Noah and Steve. It was Willa. “Will?” said Steve. She was somehow back where she had started, the skylight once again perfectly sealed. Willa paused, realizing at once where she was but not questioning how she’d gotten there. It seemed all paths led back to the mansion. The librarian offered his most reassuring smile, which wasn’t very reassuring at all.

“Your tale is finished, Mistress Willa,” the librarian said.

She nodded, too numb to question his meaning.

“It’s my turn, right?” Noah was doing the talking, often a brave soul when he had to be. And like Willa, he was starting to understand the rules. He pointed to Steve. “You said he goes last. That means I’m next.”

“You’re learning, Master Noah.” The librarian flipped to the next story. And with Tim, Willa, and Steve receding into the background, Noah became the star of his very own whopper of a fish story….

T
he swimming pool was unswimmable.

Noah guessed as much based on the gnarly thing draped over the aboveground structure. A tarp of metallic silver, like the stuff space suits were made from, littered with unidentifiable patches of greenish and purplish mildewy muck. What lay beneath was anyone’s guess. Actually, Noah’s guess was a mixture of fungi and weeds and water so rancid even his stepfather’s dog wouldn’t drink it. And let’s face it: that dang dog drank anything. So, going back to where we started…

The swimming pool was unswimmable.

That made the task of cleaning it out all the more terrifying. And not terrifying in a “book featuring kids in a haunted mansion” sort of way. We’re talking real-life terror.