The Deadly Past Read online

  Adam raised the laser for a third time and took aim.

  Watch floored the truck accelerator.

  “Shoot it!” Sally cried.

  Adam fired. The red energy spewed forth.

  But at that exact moment they hit a bump and he missed.

  Fifteen seconds to detonation.

  The monster opened its beak wide.

  Two seconds to pterodactyl dessert.

  One hundred yards to Spooksville’s city limit.

  For the fourth time Adam began to squeeze the laser trigger.

  But suddenly the pterodactyl began to gag.

  Adam had to blink several times to understand the reason.

  Sally had removed her shoe and thrown it into the monster’s mouth.

  The pterodactyl veered away.

  Coughing like a parrot with a peanut stuck in its throat.

  Sally shrugged as Adam and Bryce stared at her in amazement.

  “It worked for Watch this morning,” she said casually. “Besides, somebody had to save us. I’m not kidding, I’m never going into battle again with a bunch of pacifists like you guys.”

  They crossed over into normal Spooksville.

  There was a blinding flash of light behind them.

  And the primeval forest vanished.

  Epilogue

  They parked the truck where they had found it and left a note on the dashboard saying that they would be happy to pay for the window they had broken, and for the gasoline they had consumed. Indeed, they had had to roll to the desired spot on the deserted road. They had run out of gas not long after cresting the mountains directly behind Spooksville.

  As they walked into town they immediately understood that the dinosaur attack had not happened for their neighbors, not in this new reality. Nothing was out of place, nobody was crying. Adam had been right. Because they had helped fix the problem in the past, it had ceased to exist in the present. No one had died, they realized, and that was the most important thing.

  But as they hiked past the witch’s castle they found Ms. Ann Templeton out front. She was watering the alligators and crocodiles in her moat. She waved to them as they walked by and called them over. They noticed she had a bunch of tiny toys in her hands. She laughed when she saw their puzzled expressions and held the toys up for them to see.

  They were tiny dinosaurs.

  Each a perfect model of a creature they had met that day.

  Ann Templeton smiled. “I thought you might like these as souvenirs.”

  But they turned her down. Even Adam.

  Some creatures in Spooksville were better left forgotten.

  About the Author

  Little is known about Christopher Pike, although he is supposed to be a strange man. It is rumored that he was born in New York but grew up in Los Angeles. He has been seen in Santa Barbara lately, so he probably lives there now. But no one really knows what he looks like, or how old he is. It is possible that he is not a real person, but an eccentric creature visiting from another world. When he is not writing, he sits and stares at the walls of his huge haunted house. A short, ugly troll wanders around him in the dark and whispers scary stories in his ear.

  Christopher Pike is one of this planet’s best-selling authors of young adult fiction.

  Books by Christopher Pike

  Spooksville #1: The Secret Path

  Spooksville #2: The Howling Ghost

  Spooksville #3: The Haunted Cave

  Spooksville #4: Aliens in the Sky

  Spooksville #5: The Cold People

  Spooksville #6: The Witch’s Revenge

  Spooksville #7: The Dark Corner

  Spooksville #8: The Little People

  Spooksville #9: The Wishing Stone

  Spooksville #10: The Wicked Cat

  Spooksville #11: The Deadly Past

  Spooksville #12: The Hidden Beast

  Spooksville #13: Creature in the Teacher

  Available from MINSTREL Books

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A MINSTREL PAPERBACK Original

  A Minstrel Book published by

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1996 by Christopher Pike

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book of portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-671-55072-1

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4814-1092-2 (eBook)

  First Minstrel Books printing July 1996

  A MINSTREL BOOK and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  SPOOKSVILLE is a trademark of Christopher Pike.

  Cover art by Lee MacLeod