The Howling Ghost

  1

  The day the howling ghost kidnapped Cindy Makey’s kid brother, Neil, was rotten from the start. Cindy began to expect bad times ever since her family moved to Springville, or Spooksville, as the kids in town called it. At first—even though she disliked the place—Cindy didn’t believe half the stories she heard about it. But after the ghost came out of the light-house and grabbed Neil, she was ready to believe anything.

  “Can I walk on the jetty?” Neil asked as they reached the end of the beach, where the rocky jetty led out to the lighthouse.

  “I don’t think so,” Cindy replied, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “It’s getting late and cold.”

  “Please?” Neil pleaded, sounding like the five-year-old he was. “I’ll be careful.”

  Cindy smiled at her brother. “You don’t know what the word means.”

  Neil frowned. “Which word?”

  “Careful, dummy.” Cindy stared at the churning ocean water. The waves weren’t high, but the way they smashed against the large boulders of the jetty made her uneasy. It was as if the surf were trying to tear down the structure. And the tall lighthouse, standing dark and silent at the end of the jetty, also made her nervous. It had ever since she moved to Springville two months ago. The lighthouse just looked, well, kind of spooky.

  “Pretty please?” Neil asked again.

  Cindy sighed. “All right. But stay in the middle, and watch where you put your feet. I don’t want you falling in.”

  Neil leaped in the air. “Cool! Do you want to come?”

  Cindy turned away. “No. I’ll sit here and watch. But if a shark comes out of the water and carries you out to sea, I’m not going in after you.”

  Neil stopped bouncing. “Do sharks eat boys?”

  “Only when there are no girls to eat.” Seeing Neil’s confused expression, Cindy laughed and sat down on a large rock. “That was a joke. Go, quick, have your walk on the jetty. Then let’s get home. It’ll be dark in a few minutes.”

  “OK,” he said, dancing away, talking to himself. “Watch out for falling feet and girl sharks.”

  “Just be careful,” Cindy said, so softly she was sure Neil didn’t hear. She wondered why the dread she felt about the town hadn’t touched her brother. Since their mother had moved them back to their father’s old house eight weeks ago, Neil had been as happy as one of the smiling clams he occasionally found on the beach.

  But Cindy knew the town wasn’t safe. In Springville the nights were just a little too dark, the moon a little too big. Sometimes in the middle of the night she heard strange sounds: leathery wings beating far overhead, muted cries echoing from under the ground. Maybe she imagined these things—she wasn’t sure. She just wished her father were still alive to go with them on their walks. Actually, she just wished he were alive. She missed him more than she knew how to say.

  Still, she kept going for walks late in the evening.

  Particularly by the ocean. It seemed to draw her.

  Even the spooky lighthouse called to her.

  Watching Neil scale the first of the large boulders, Cindy began to sing a song her father had taught her. Actually, it was more of an old poem that she chanted. The words were not pleasant. But for some strange reason they came back to Cindy right then.

  The ocean is a lady,

  She is kind to all.

  But if you forget her dark moods.

  Her cold waves, those watery walls.

  Then you are bound to fall.

  Into a cold grave.

  Where the fish will have you for food.

  The ocean is a princess.

  She is always fair.

  But if you dive too deep.

  Into the abyss, the octopus’s lair.

  Then you are bound to despair.

  In a cold grave.

  Where the sharks will have you for meat.

  “My father never was much of a poet,” Cindy muttered when she finished the piece. Of course, she knew he hadn’t made it up. Someone had taught it to him. She just didn’t know who. Maybe his mother or father, who had lived in Springville when her father was five.

  Cindy wondered if he had ever walked out to the lighthouse.

  Without warning, the top of the lighthouse began to glow right then.

  “Oh no,” Cindy muttered as she got to her feet. Everyone knew the lighthouse was deserted. A pillar of spider webs and dust. Light had not shone from its windows since she’d moved to Springville. Her mother said it hadn’t been turned on in decades.

  Yet as she watched, a powerful beam of white light stabbed out from the top of the lighthouse. It was turned toward the sea. It raked over the water like an energy beam fired from an alien ship. The surface of the water churned harder beneath its glare, as if it were boiling. Steam appeared to rise up from the cold water. For a moment she thought she saw something just under the surface. A ruined ship, maybe, wrecked on a sharp reef that grew over it with the passing years.

  Then the light snapped toward the shore, spinning halfway around. It focused on the jetty. Still moving, still searching.

  Cindy watched in horror as it crept toward her brother.

  He was already partway down the jetty, his eyes focused on his feet.

  “Neil!” she screamed.

  He looked up just as the light fell on him. It was as if something physical had grabbed him. For a few seconds his short brown hair stood straight up. Then his feet lifted off the boulder he was standing on. The light was so bright it was blinding. But Cindy got the impression that two ugly hands had emerged from the light to take hold of him. As a second scream rose in her throat, she thought she saw the hands tighten their grip.

  “Get away, Neil!” she cried.

  Cindy was running toward her brother. But the light was faster than she was. Before she even reached the jetty, Neil was yanked completely into the air. For several seconds he floated above the rocks and surf, an evil wind tugging at his hair, terror in his eyes.

  “Neil!” Cindy kept screaming, leaping from boulder to boulder, not caring where her feet landed. But that was her undoing. She was almost to her brother, within arm’s reach, when her shoes hit a piece of wet seaweed. She slipped and went down hard. Pain flared in her right leg. She had scraped the skin off her knee.

  “Cindy!” her brother finally called. But the word sounded strange, the cry of a lost soul falling into a deep well. As Cindy watched, her brother was yanked out over the water, away from the jetty. He was held suspended, as the waves crashed beneath his feet and the wind howled.

  Yet this was not a natural wind. It howled as if alive. Or else it shouted as if it hungered for those still living. The sound seemed to come from the beam of light itself. There was a note of sick humor in the sound. A wicked chuckle. It had her brother. It had what it wanted.

  “Neil,” Cindy whispered, in despair.

  He tried to speak to her, perhaps to say her name again.

  But no words came out.

  The beam of light suddenly moved.

  It jerked her brother farther out over the sea. Far out over the rough surf. For a few seconds Cindy could still see him, a struggling shadow in the glare of the cold light. But then the beam swept upward, toward the sky. And went out.

  Just like that, the light vanished.

  Taking her brother with it.

  “Neil!” Cindy cried.

  But the wind continued to howl.

  And her cry was lost over the cruel sea.

  No one heard her. No one came to help.

  2

  Two days after Cindy Makey’s brother was kidnapped by the howling ghost, Adam Freeman and Sally Wilcox were having breakfast with their friend Watch. Breakfast was doughnuts and milk at the local bakery. Of course, Sally w
as having coffee instead of milk because, as she said, the caffeine helped steady her nerves.

  “What’s wrong with your nerves?” Adam asked, munching on a jelly doughnut.

  “If you had lived here as long as me, you wouldn’t have to ask,” Sally replied, sipping her coffee. She nodded to his doughnut. “It’s better to eat ones that don’t have stuff inside.”

  “Why?” Adam asked.

  “You never know what that stuff might be,” Sally said.

  “It’s just a jelly doughnut,” Adam protested, although he did stop eating it.

  Sally spoke gravely. “Yeah, but where did the jelly come from? Have you been in the back room? Have you studied the supplies? You can make jelly out of raspberries and strawberries, or a respectable facsimile from scrambled brains.”

  Adam set his doughnut down. “I really don’t think so.

  “It’s not always wise to think too much in this town,” Sally said. “Sometimes you’ve got to trust your gut feelings.” She leaned over and sniffed the doughnut. “Or your nose. It smells all right to me, Adam. Go ahead, have another bite.”

  Adam sipped his milk. “I’ve had enough.”

  “Can I finish it?” Watch asked. “I’m not picky.”

  “Sure,” Adam said, pushing the doughnut over. “What were we talking about a few seconds ago? I forgot.”

  “Alien abductions,” Watch said, taking a bite out of the doughnut and licking the jelly as it oozed over his fingers. “They’re happening all over. Ships from other planets come down and grab people and take them into orbit for physical examinations. I’m surprised one of us hasn’t been abducted yet. I imagine we would make interesting specimens.”

  “I don’t believe in flying saucers,” Adam said.

  Sally snorted. “Yeah. Just like you didn’t believe in witches a month ago.”

  “Have you ever seen a flying saucer?” Adam asked even though he knew what Sally’s answer would be.

  “Of course,” she said. “Just before you got here I saw one come down up at the reservoir. Old Man Farmer was out on his boat fishing and—”

  “Wait a second,” Adam interrupted. “I thought you said there were no fish in the reservoir? That they had all thrown themselves on the shore because they couldn’t bear to live there.”

  “I said he was fishing,” Sally explained. “I didn’t say he was catching any fish. Anyway, this ship came down and hovered over him and emitted this high vibration. Before you knew it Farmer’s face got really long and his eyes bulged out of his head. Ten seconds of this and he looked like an alien.”

  “Then what?” Adam asked.

  Sally shrugged nonchalantly. “The ship left and he continued fishing. I think he caught something that day, too. But I don’t know if it was edible.”

  “But did Mr. Farmer continue to look like an alien?” Adam asked, exasperated.

  “It was not a lasting operation,” Sally said.

  “But his chin is still kind of pointed,” Watch added.

  Adam shook his head. “I don’t believe any of this.”

  “Why don’t you take a peek in the back,” Sally said. “Old Man Farmer works here. He probably baked that doughnut you just ate.”

  As often was the case when Adam was with his friends, he had to struggle to keep up. If he hadn’t almost been thrown in a boiling vat on the Secret Path, he would have refused to believe this new story. But nowadays he always left the door to his mind open, in case what they were talking about might be true.

  “What I want to know,” Adam said, “is why Spooksville is so spooky? What is it about this place that makes it different from other towns?”

  Watch nodded. “That’s the big question. I’ve been trying to figure out the answer since I moved here. But I can tell you one thing, Bum knows the truth. I think Ann Templeton does, too.”

  “But Bum won’t tell?” Adam asked.

  “Nope,” Watch said. “He said I have to find the answer for myself. And that I will probably disappear from the face of the earth before I do.” He paused. “You might want to talk to Ann Templeton about it sometime. I hear you guys are friends.”

  “Who told you that?” Adam asked.

  Watch pointed at Sally. “She did.”

  “What I said was that he was in love with the witch,” Sally explained. “I didn’t say they were friends.”

  “I don’t love her,” Adam snapped.

  “Well, you certainly don’t love me,” Sally snapped back.

  Adam scratched his head. “How did we go from what makes Spooksville scary to my personal life.”

  “What personal life?” Sally asked, getting annoyed. “You don’t have a personal life. You don’t even have a girlfriend.”

  “I’m twelve years old,” Adam said. “I’m not required to have a girlfriend.”

  “That’s right,” Sally said. “Wait till you’re eighteen. Let your whole life pass you by. Throw away your finest years. I don’t care. I live in the present moment. That’s the only way to live in this town. Because tomorrow you might be dead. Or worse.”

  Watch patted Sally on the back. “I think you need another doughnut.”

  Sally grumbled, still looking at Adam. “Doughnuts cannot cure all my problems.” Nevertheless, she took a bite out of the chocolate one Watch set in front of her. A smile touched her lips. “Ah, sugar and chocolate. Better than love. They’re always there for you.”

  Adam looked away and muttered, “You should carry a box of chocolates wherever you go.”

  “I heard that,” Sally said, still munching her doughnut, which may have had a little jelly in the center of it, too. Casually, she reached behind her and lifted a newspaper off the next table. She studied the news for a few seconds. “Oh no,” she moaned.

  “What is it?” Adam asked.

  “A five-year-old boy disappeared off the jetty, down by the lighthouse,” Sally said.

  “Didn’t you know?” Watch asked. “It was in yesterday’s paper. A wave came up and carried him off. The police say he must have drowned.”

  “Drowned?” Sally repeated, pointing to the article. “His sister was with him at the time, and she says a ghost came out of the lighthouse and grabbed the kid.”

  Watch shrugged. “Either way the kid’s a goner.”

  “Have they found his body?” Adam asked, feeling sick. He didn’t know what it would be like to drown, but imagined it would be like smothering.

  “No,” Sally said, reading the article. “The police say the tide must have carried the boy out. The idiots.”

  “But that sounds logical,” Adam said, although he was sure Sally would yell at him for saying it. Sally huffed and tossed the paper aside.

  “Don’t you see?” she asked. “They haven’t found a body because he didn’t drown. The kid’s sister is telling the truth. A ghost swiped the kid. Watch, why don’t you explain to Adam that these things happen. This is reality.”

  Watch was not interested. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter whether it was a ghost or a wave. The kid’s dead by now.”

  Sally was annoyed. “He’s just another Spooksville statistic to you? How can you be so cold? What if he’s alive?”

  Watch blinked at her. “That would be nice.”

  “No!” Sally yelled. “What if he’s alive and needs to be rescued? We’re the only ones who can do it.”

  “Really?” Watch asked.

  “Of course,” Sally said. “I believe this girl. I believe in ghosts.”

  “I don’t,” Adam said.

  Sally glared. “You’re just afraid of them. That’s why you’re willing to leave this poor young boy to a life of torment. Really, Adam, I’m disappointed in you.”

  Adam could feel himself getting a headache. “I have nothing against this kid. But if the police couldn’t find him, I don’t think we can.”

  Sally stood up. “Great. Give up without trying. Next time a witch or an alien kidnaps you, I’ll just order a cup of coffee and a jelly doughnut and tell whoev
er’s around that Adam was a nice guy and I really cared for him but if he’s gone he’s gone and there’s no sense searching for him because I can’t be bothered.” She paused to catch her breath. “Well?”

  “Well, what?” Adam asked.

  Sally put her hands on her hips. “Are you going to help me or not?”

  Adam glanced at Watch, who had picked up the paper and was reading the article. “Are we helping her or not?” Adam asked his friend.

  Watch glanced at his watches, all four of them, two on each arm. “It’s not as if we’re doing anything this afternoon.” He added, “I know Cindy Makey. She’s cute.”

  Adam turned back to Sally. “We’ll help you.”

  Sally fumed as she turned away. “You guys are so altruistic.”

  Adam glanced at Watch as he stood up, ready to follow Sally. “What does altruistic mean?” he whispered to Watch.

  “Let’s just say the word does not apply to us,” Watch whispered back.

  3

  Cindy was sitting outside her house, slowly rocking on a wooden porch swing. Adam felt a pang in his chest—her face was so sad. She didn’t even hear them approach. She seemed absorbed in her own private world. A world where her little brother was no longer there. In that moment Adam would have given anything to get the missing kid back.

  But then Adam remembered what Watch had said.

  Either way it was probably hopeless.

  “Hello,” Sally said as they stepped onto the girl’s porch. “Are you Cindy Makey?”

  Watch was right, she was pretty. Her hair was long and blond; it reached almost to her waist. Her eyes were wide and deep blue. They reminded Adam of the sky just before the sun came up. Yet her eyes were also red. She had been crying just before they arrived.

  “Yes,” Cindy said softly.

  Sally stepped forward and offered her hand. “Hi, I’m Sally Wilcox and this is Adam Freeman and Watch. We may not look like much, but we’re intelligent and resourceful individuals. Best of all, we’ve been through pretty weird stuff. We believe in almost everything, including your ghost.” Sally paused to catch her breath. “We’re here to help you get your brother back.”

  Cindy took a moment to absorb everything Sally had just said. She gestured to another two-person swing.