PART ONE
1
The horror started because of a kiss.
And because my girlfriend and I were somewhere we weren’t supposed to be.
Jamie and I were the first Night People, although we didn’t call ourselves that until much later. Soon, other kids found out about what we were doing and decided to try it too.
But in those early days, we had the whole night to ourselves—like it was our world! Still and quiet, and the streets all empty and the houses dark, we could go anywhere we wanted and do anything we felt like.
How cool is that?
Jamie and I started the whole thing. With mountains of homework and senior year crunch, we never had time to see each other.
So one October night we waited for our parents to go to sleep. A little after midnight, we sneaked out of our houses and met at the construction site on Fear Street.
The old Fear Mansion was about to be torn down. All the old mansions for blocks had been knocked down to make way for the shopping center.
Fear Street Acres.
They talked about it on TV a lot. How in the past everyone in Shadyside had been scared to come to this neighborhood. How the Fear family had left some kind of evil curse on Fear Street.
But now, with Fear Street Acres, it was all supposed to change. Now the neighborhood would be jammed with shoppers and restaurants and people having fun.
The Fear Mansion was already a burned-out wreck. The brick walls were sooty and black as if a huge shadow clung to the house.
Inside, the floorboards cracked and creaked under our feet. Rats and field mice scrabbled over the floors. Insects built huge nests in the rotting walls. And the wind whistled through the broken windows.
Over a hundred years ago, there had been a terrible fire in the house. The burned-out shell of the building had stood at the end of Fear Street ever since. A lot of people were afraid to go inside it—afraid of the curse, and of the Fear family’s evil magic.
But to us, it was just a cool place to meet and hang out. Our own world. Who would look for us there?
* * *
That first night, I remember the full moon. Actually, I remember everything about that night. The first night of the Night People.
Jamie and I slipped into one of the abandoned houses. We found a ratty old couch to sit on, and Jamie climbed on my lap. We hardly said a word. We held each other as if we never wanted to let go. Hidden in the deep darkness, we felt safe and protected and alone.
Jamie’s lipstick tasted orangy. She had her eyes shut tight as we kissed. I still remember how we started breathing so hard, and stopped, and let go of each other for a while.
We started sneaking out nearly every night.
Most nights we crept into the old Fear Mansion, and we stayed there together later and later. Around four or five in the morning, we’d sneak back to our homes and try to catch a few hours’ sleep.
Some nights we explored the old house. We looked for ghosts. We looked for things that the Fears might have left. But the rooms were empty and charred and sad.
Spiders had filled the main kitchen with curtains of webs. The walls of the library were burned and peeling. Rotting bookshelves had collapsed. Our shoes slid through thick carpets of dust.
One wing of the mansion had withstood the fire. One crystal chandelier still hung in what was once the gigantic ballroom. One night Jamie and I pretended to waltz, laughing and twirling down the still-shiny floor of the enormous room.
“Wow. Lewis, just think of the parties the Fear family had here,” Jamie said. “We’re dancing with ghosts.”
Yes, as I said, Jamie really believes in ghosts and the spirit world. Ever since her cousin Cindy died last year, Jamie has been totally obsessed.
Cindy had some kind of horrible blood disease, and she knew she wasn’t going to make it. A week before she died, Jamie and I visited her in the hospital.
“I’ll send you a sign,” Cindy said. She had tubes in both arms and an oxygen tube in her nose. She could only whisper.
“I’ll send you a sign,” she said. “I’ll send you a signal from the other side. I promise.”
Ever since, Jamie read every book she can find about ghosts and the supernatural. She and her two friends, Christa and Elena, are all really into the ghost world. It’s almost like a club. They’re waiting for the signal from Cindy. Well, not just waiting. They talk about the signal and look for it everywhere.
I know Jamie liked meeting me in the Fear Mansion because she thought there were ghosts in there. She was dying to see a ghost, or hear one, or see some sign that they existed.
That’s not why I sneaked out of my house every night. I just wanted to be with Jamie. To have our own secret world.
But, of course, our friends found out about what we were doing. And before long, Jamie and I weren’t the only Night People.
Christa and Elena started sneaking out of their houses too. And two friends of mine, Justin Schmidt and Raymond Kresge, and some guys I didn’t know too well.
And then a bunch of Juniors started showing up. I remember Nate Garvin was one of the first. And then his friend Bart Sharkman—the guy everyone calls Shark. And Candy Shutt. Candy was still going with Shark then. They were totally into each other. They were always going off by themselves into one of the back rooms. Some other eleventh-grade kids came out too.
Most of us would meet after midnight at the Fear Mansion. Then we’d split up and wander off in different directions.
This was before the Nights bar opened. Nights didn’t open until the next fall.
We didn’t care where we met. It was just so exciting to be out all night and no one knowing about it. It was more than exciting. There was a special thrill having this secret from our parents and everyone.
Sometimes four or five of us would walk into town and stare into the dark store windows. Some nights we sneaked into the gym at the high school. We cranked up a boombox till the bleachers shook. Some nights we just hung out in the parking lot.
Shark had spray cans of that stringy stuff, and some nights he’d spray some windows or doors. He liked filling mailboxes with the stringy stuff.
Once we picked up a dog house and moved it to another yard. I don’t know why we thought that was such a riot. But we did. And one night we found a dead raccoon in the road and we hung it on someone’s clothes line. Dumb, huh? But kinda funny.
We never did any real damage. We didn’t want to get into trouble. We didn’t want to risk ruining this perfect, secret world we had.
And then came the night we found the hidden room.
There was a big crowd that night. Some of Nate and Shark’s friends showed up. A girl named Ada and a couple of guys I didn’t really know—Aaron and Galen Somebody.
We were all in the ballroom of the Fear Mansion. Shark disappeared into a back room with Candy Shutt. Christa and Elena hung out with Jamie and me for a while, but they went home early.
I took Jamie’s arm and whispered to her. “It’s too crowded tonight. Let’s take a walk or something.”
Jamie nodded okay.
Across the room I saw my two buddies, Justin and Raymond. They were having a friendly shoving match. Just goofing around. Justin stumbled back, laughing. I think he was trashed. He and Raymond had each brought a six-pack.
Raymond gave Justin another shove. Justin’s back slammed into the wall. I heard a crash. The wall was concrete or stone. But it totally crumbled.
Justin let out a cry as the wall fell in and he crashed right through it.
“Whoa!” Raymond dropped to his knees, laughing. He dropped his can of Budweiser, and the beer splashed over the floor.
“Hey—help me!” Justin shouted. His voice was muffled by the broken wall.
I ran
across the room. Jamie was right behind me. And a bunch of other kids. I bent down to see if I could pull Justin out of the wall. He was on his back, giggling and kicking his legs.
“Justin, do you want help or not?” I asked.
He cut off his laugh. “Lewis, you won’t believe this,” he said. “Dude, you won’t believe this!”
And that’s how we discovered the hidden room. We all followed Justin through the hole in the wall. Nate Garvin had a halogen flashlight, so we could see really well.
I squeezed through the hole and helped pull Jamie in behind me. I guess the first thing I noticed was that the room had no door. Maybe there was a trap door or something, but I couldn’t find one. No door. No window.
There was no way to get into the room!
“Check this out!” Nate cried, sweeping his light over the shelves on the walls. I saw shelves going up to the ceiling, stacked high with all kinds of weird stuff.
Stacks of black candles. Jars of colored powders. Incense sticks. Animal bones. Old books and piles and piles of papers and magazines and journals. Glittery jewelry. Silver trophies and medals. A black cloak and hooded coats and long dresses hung in an alcove beside the shelves.
We all started pulling things off the shelves and pawing through drawers like it was some kind of toy store at Christmastime. Jamie tried on a fur coat that came down to her ankles. “Feel it,” she kept insisting. “Lewis, feel it.” I ran my hand over the dark fur. Very soft and silky.
“Whoa—dude!” Shark showed off a tiny silver pistol he’d found. Candy found a jewelry box and started pulling out long, glittery earrings.
I found some treasures too. For one thing, a stack of old sheet music. I flipped through the pile quickly, squinting in the shifting light. Some of the songs dated back to 1900. I knew they were worth big-time bucks. And I found a two-volume coin collection that had to be worth money too.
I decided I’d hide the stuff in my room for a while, then maybe sell it on eBay.
Jamie hung the fur coat back up and went to check out the jewelry box. I saw her slip a gold bracelet on her wrist. Some of the eleventh-grade girls had found another jewelry box and were excitedly clawing through it.
“It isn’t even my birthday!” Shark cried. And everyone laughed. He picked up a big, silver trophy cup. “I want to thank everyone who made this possible!” he cried. “I couldn’t have done it without you!”
Guys were trying on gold and silver medals. Two girls were trading bright red, hooded cloaks. Raymond pulled a rabbit skeleton from a jar and waved it in front of Ada. She let out a scream.
Jamie came running over to me wearing long, sparkly earrings. She had a stack of old journals in her arms. “They’re all about witchcraft and the supernatural,” she said. “This is so cool. I can’t believe Christa and Elena left early.”
Well, we totally looted the place. Then, one by one, we squeezed back through the splintered hole in the wall and carried our treasures home.
Stealing?
No way you could call it stealing. No one had lived in the Fear Mansion for over one hundred years. And who knows how long the stuff had been buried in this hidden room?
Yes, it had belonged to the Fears. But the Fears were history. Now it was ours.
So we all helped ourselves. I mean, it was finders keepers, big-time.
“I’ll bet this was Angelica Fear’s private chamber,” Jamie whispered to me. I could see she was a little frightened. Jamie believed the stories about the Fear Street curse. She believed that the evil of the Fears lived on in the house.
Not me. On that warm October night as we hurried off with our treasures, I didn’t believe any of it.
Of course, a short while later—when all the horror started—I believed.
Yes, I totally believed.
2
“Lewis, did you bring your camera?” Jamie asked.
I held it up. “Maybe a ghost will pose for me over by that tree.”
Jamie slapped my shoulder. “Bad attitude,” she said.
I grinned at her. “Yeah, I’m feeling kinda bad.” I tried to kiss her, but she backed away.
It was late October, almost Halloween, and our shoes crunched over the hard ground. Dry leaves danced around us in a sharp, gusting wind. The moon was hidden behind low clouds. Once again, we were the Night People, and the world was ours.
Tonight we returned to the grounds of the Fear Mansion. It was especially cold outside, and none of the others had made it out. But Jamie and I were there for a reason.
“I think tonight is the night I will hear from Cindy,” Jamie had said as I drove her home from school that afternoon. “I just have a feeling, Lewis.”
She was always having feelings about this stuff. I kept my mouth shut and tried not to argue.
“Cindy died exactly two months ago today,” Jamie said, tensely twisting a strand of her dark hair. “And two was her lucky number. I know it sounds crazy. But I want to be outside the Fear Mansion tonight watching for her signal.”
“Why there? Why the Fear Mansion?” I asked.
“It was just knocked down, right?” she replied. “The ghosts have been disturbed. They’ll be all around, Lewis. I know they will.”
* * *
Jamie and I were there the afternoon the workers came and knocked down what was left of the Fear Mansion. We watched from across the street. It was a warm day in early fall. The leaves still shimmered green on the trees.
They used one of those giant battering balls. The ball shattered the brick walls. It didn’t take long for the house to just crumble in on itself.
I had my arm around Jamie’s shoulders, and I felt her whole body shake when the house came crashing down. She shut her big, brown eyes tight.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She didn’t answer for a while. A sharp gust of wind fluttered her dark hair behind her back. She shivered again.
“I just had a feeling,” she said. She shrugged and gave me a smile, almost like apologizing. “A cold feeling. No big deal, Lewis.”
“You think there are ghosts in there?”
“Maybe,” Jamie said.
I tried to kiss her, but she turned to the house.
A thick cloud of dust rose up from the ruins of the mansion. The wind swept the dust over us, and we both spun away, coughing.
I smoothed dirt off the front of my T-shirt. Then I brushed some leaves from Jamie’s blue sweater.
Workers were bulldozing what was left of the house. The thud of bricks and the clatter of shattered glass echoed off the old trees.
It gave me a chill too. I’m not sure why.
* * *
And tonight, here we were, back on Fear Street. Because Jamie had a hunch. . . .
Would this be the night she’d finally contact the ghost world?
“There had to be a lot of ghosts in that house, Lewis,” she said. “Their resting place has been destroyed. The ghosts will be out. The spirit power will be high. Perfect for Cindy to try to contact me.”
I snickered. “Because the ghosts are homeless? You’re joking, right?”
I could see she wasn’t joking. “Forget it. You can just leave,” she said sharply. “Christa and Elena will come with me.”
“Hey—I’m here,” I said. “I’m ready. Check it out. I brought my new digital camera, didn’t I?”
So there we were, just the two of us at one in the morning, huddled in the gusting wind outside the wrecked Fear Mansion.
“You’re shivering,” Jamie said. She pulled the zipper on my jacket up to my neck. “Are you scared, Lewis?”
I rolled my eyes. “Huh? Yeah. Like, really. It’s cold, Jamie. Why don’t we come back in the spring and look for ghosts?”
She ignored my question and pulled a tape recorder from her backpack. She had her hair tied in a ponytail, and it got caught in the backpack strap. I pulled her hair free as she fiddled with the tape controls.
“I know you don’t believe me,” Jamie said. “But th
is is the perfect place to find someone from the spirit world. You know the stories about the Fear Mansion. Simon and Angelica Fear were supposed to be the most evil people in the world.”
“We studied it all in fourth grade,” I said. “I thought it was a crock back then. And so did you. Why don’t you put down the recorder and come warm me up?”
She smiled. “Maybe later. Do you know about the Fears’ daughters? The two little girls who were found in the woods? I mean, their skin was found, but their bones were totally gone.”
I shook my head. “I hate when that happens.”
Jamie glanced around. The wind had stopped. A hush fell over us. I watched my breath steam up in front of me.
“There must be dozens of spirits lingering on this spot,” Jamie whispered. “You know. Poor souls who were tortured by the Fears. Angelica Fear was a witch. She cast spells on a lot of people. And now their ghosts are waiting around to get revenge.”
I shivered again. “How long is this going to take?” I asked.
Jamie shrugged. “As long as it takes. Cindy promised she’d send a signal. The spirit energy is so high here, Lewis. I can feel it.”
We sat down on a pile of bricks, and we didn’t say another word. The only sound was the soft whir of Jamie’s recorder.
No wind at all. The trees around the grounds stood still and silent. No cars on the street. The houses all around lay crumbled, in ruin, ready to be carted away.
Yes, I suddenly felt creeped out.
I don’t believe in ghosts. And I never really got into the stories about the Fear Family. But sitting there so silent and alert, listening and staring out into the darkness, I felt a cold tingle at the back of my neck.
“Sometimes ghosts appear as bright orbs,” Jamie whispered. “Little flashes of light that you can’t explain any other way.”
“Have you seen any?” I whispered back.
“Not yet,” she whispered.
She edged closer to me. I pressed my shoulder against hers. We sat there for a long time. My nose was getting numb, and my fingers felt frozen stiff under my gloves. I watched my breath puff up in front of me and waited.
I was being a real good sport here. Jamie was going to owe me—big-time.