I followed him upstairs and closed the front door after him. Then I hurried to phone my friends and tell them everything that had happened.
The next afternoon the four of us huddled in my living room. No one was eager to go down to the basement.
“That old guy from a hundred years ago was in your house?” Valerie asked, shuddering. “You let him in?”
“I had no choice,” I explained. “He pushed his way in. He said he came to fix the furnace. He’s coming back today.”
“We can’t go back down there,” Bill said, motioning to the basement door. “We have to find a new place to hang out.”
“We have to go down there,” I insisted. “I’ve been thinking about this all day, and I think I’ve figured out part of it.”
“Figured out what?” Bill asked.
“Why we’re seeing those four kids,” I replied. “I think they need our help. If we can warn them somehow about the ceiling, they won’t have to die that horrible death.”
“But Robb--they can’t see us or hear us!” Julie protested. “So how can we warn them?”
“There’s got to be a way,” I insisted. “We’ve got to find a way to communicate with them.” I jumped to my feet. “Come on. We can save them. I know we can.”
I practically had to force my friends down the stairs. When we reached the basement, all four of us stopped. And listened.
I heard a slow, soft scrape scrape scrape from the far corner.
Footsteps?
Scrape scrape…
Louder now.
“The ghost of the little girl!” Valerie cried.
“Oh, no!” My breath caught in my throat. I took a step toward the sound….
And saw Cal pop his head out from behind the furnace. He clamped the wrench on a pipe. As he turned the wrench, it made the scraping sound. “Hope I didn’t startle you,” he called.
He put down the wrench and crossed the room to us. He was wearing the same outfit as the night before, baggy denim overalls and a red shirt.
How did he get down here? I wondered, feeling a chill. How did he get in the house?
“I’ve got to go buy a valve,” he told me, frowning. “Be back in an hour or so.”
He motioned for me to follow him to the steps. “I feel bad about last night,” he whispered. “That story about the little girl? I just made it up. You looked like you wanted to hear a scary story, so--”
“Made it up?” I cried.
He nodded. “Making up stories is sort of a hobby of mine. I enjoy telling tales. Maybe I’ll put you in a scary story someday.” He winked at me.
I watched him disappear up the basement stairs. I felt more confused than ever. Had he really made up that story? I turned back to my friends.
Bill handed me the black mask. “What are we going to do?” he asked.
“Try to reach those kids somehow,” I said. “Try to warn them.”
I pulled on the mask and adjusted the holes over my eyes. Yes! There they were. The four old-fashioned kids, down on the floor, sitting around that board game.
“What are your names?” I shouted. “Hello? Can you hear me? What are your names?”
If only I could see their faces. But their features were a blur, hidden behind a hazy glow of light.
“What are your names? Can you hear me?”
Nothing. They continued rolling the dice, moving their game pieces.
Still calling to them, I walked across the room. I reached out. Tried to grab a boy’s shoulder.
My hand went right through it.
He didn’t react.
I tried to pull a girl’s hair.
Nothing. I couldn’t grasp her hair, couldn’t even feel it.
I tore off the mask in disgust. “I can’t reach them,” I told my friends.
“Here. Try this,” Julie said. She shoved a piece of paper into my hand. “I wrote a note to them. I told them to get out of the basement right away.”
I handed Julie the mask. “You try to give the note to them.”
She hesitated, then pulled on the mask. Valerie, Bill, and I watched Julie cross the room. We watched her try again and again to deliver the note. But the paper remained in her hand.
Finally she pulled off the mask and tossed it to me. “No way,” she said. “They can’t see it.”
“They’re all going to die!” Valerie wailed. “This is horrible!”
“There has to be a way to communicate,” I insisted. “Some secret way. This basement holds the secret. I know it. Some secret way to get to these kids and…”
I think all four of us looked at the padlocked closet at the same time.
A secret…the secret closet…the only closet in the basement that was locked.
“We have to open it,” Valerie said. “I’ll bet we’ll find what we’re looking for in there.”
“Wait,” I said. “I have a bad feeling about this. Maybe we shouldn’t open that closet door. Maybe it’s locked for a good reason.”
But it was too late. They were already in front of the closet, tugging on the rusted padlock.
“Please, guys!” I begged. “This is too scary. I don’t think we should open…”
Using his strength, Bill pulled the old padlock open. He lifted it off the latch and tossed it onto the floor.
Valerie frowned at me. “We might as well see what’s inside, Robb,” she said softly.
She turned the handle. The heavy old door creaked as she pushed it open.
The closet light flashed on.
All four of us squeezed inside.
And gasped in shock.
“Old clothes!” Julie declared, holding up a faded, lace-collared blouse. “Piles of them.”
Bill sneezed. “Check out these shoes.” He held up a pair of black high-topped shoes. They had buttons instead of shoelaces. He blew the dust off them and sneezed again.
Julie held a long, black corduroy jumper up in front of her. “Wow. Pretty awesome, huh? This is like the clothes those kids from the past were wearing.”
I shuddered. “I really don’t think we should touch this stuff.”
But Julie was already buttoning the lace blouse over her T-shirt. And Bill was admiring a black suit jacket with wide lapels.
“Stop!” I pleaded. “I think this stuff belonged to the dead kids.”
“Yes! That’s right!” Julie said, running her hand down the heavy fabric. “This is what they were wearing!”
“So we have to dress up in it,” Valerie insisted. “Don’t you see, Robb? Maybe this is the secret we’ve been looking for. Maybe if we put their clothes on, we can communicate with them.”
“Yeah, right!” Bill agreed. “Maybe they’ll be able to hear us and talk to us if we’re dressed in their clothes.”
I wasn’t sure it would work, but I joined the others. I pulled on an itchy shirt with a stiff, white collar and a pair of baggy tweed pants that stopped just below my knees.
We all admired each other for a few minutes. Valerie and Julie looked a little weird with their hair combed up in buns. We complained about how uncomfortable all the clothing was and how kids were so uncool in the old days.
“Let’s try the mask,” Valerie suggested. “Let’s see if we can reach those kids.”
“No, wait,” Julie insisted. “Let’s do this right. We need one more thing.”
She found the old board games in the wooden crate and set Pah-Cheesi down on the floor. “Okay, sit down, everyone,” she said. “Come on. Let’s play the game. Just like the four kids from the past.”
We obediently dropped to the floor and sat around the board game. “I hope it works,” I said. “I hope we can reach them now.”
After we played for a few minutes I grabbed the black mask and started to pull it on, but I stopped when I heard the heavy thuds coming down the stairs. Slow, steady footsteps heavy enough to make the stairs creak.
We all turned to see Cal. “A dress-up game?” he called. “You all look very sophisticated. Don’t let
me interrupt.”
He disappeared around the side of the furnace and began working his wrench around the pipes.
This is perfect now, I realized. With Cal back there, we have created exactly the same scene. But can we talk to those poor kids? Can we warn them?
I reached again for the black mask.
But I never had time to put it on.
“The furnace!” Cal screamed from behind us. “It--it’s going to blow!”
The explosion knocked us all onto our backs. I gasped for breath. Pain shot through my body.
I heard the loud craaaack above my head.
I looked up in time to see the ceiling beam splitting…splitting in two….
All four of us were screaming now.
Screaming…screaming…as the beam came crashing down and the ceiling started to collapse.
And in the final two seconds, in that last terrifying moment of my life, I realized the horror of it.
I realized the truth about the black mask.
We were wrong. We were so wrong.
Those kids were us!
The mask never showed us the past--it showed us the future!
Afraid of Clowns
INTRODUCTION
ILLUSTRATED BY VINCE NATALE
Afraid of clowns? Why?
Maybe it’s the mouth--the blood-red slash against the ghostly white face. Maybe it’s the silence. Maybe it’s because of Christopher….
When I was a little kid, my friend Christopher told me that clowns were really bad guys. He said they were criminals who hid from the law by disguising themselves under all that makeup. He told me if you ever see a clown without his makeup--you’ll die!
I didn’t believe him. Not for too long, anyway. But I thought about Christopher when I came up with this Nightmare Hour story. It’s about a boy who is afraid of clowns--and he should be!
This story is for you, Christopher. Sweet dreams….
I’ve always been afraid of clowns. I know it’s silly, but I can’t help it. I don’t think clowns are funny. I think they are scary.
I know how my fear started. I can remember it so clearly….
It was Billy Waldman’s third birthday party. All the kids there were three or four.
Billy had a clown at his party. At first the clown did magic tricks. Later he started squirting us in the face with a big squirt gun. Some kids laughed, but I didn’t think it was funny.
I remember the clown’s painted smile and his red mop-hair wig. But what I remember most are the clown’s eyes when he came up close to me.
He didn’t have laughing eyes. His eyes weren’t kind. Beneath all the white clown makeup his eyes were cruel.
The clown squirted us with whipped cream. Then he smashed a pie into Billy’s face. Other kids laughed and laughed. But I felt like crying.
And before I knew it, the clown came right up to me. He backed me into a corner, bumping me with his pillow belly.
The other kids forgot about Billy and began laughing at the way the clown was bumping me against the wall. But I was really frightened.
“What’s your name?” the clown asked in a very deep, croaky voice.
“Christopher,” I said.
Then the clown leaned really close to me, so close I could smell his sour breath. And he whispered, “You could die, kid.”
I remember it so clearly, even though I was only three. I gasped. “What?” I said.
And the clown whispered, his lips brushing my ear, “You could die, kid. You could die LAUGHING!”
I was terrified of clowns from that day on. If I saw one at the mall or in front of a car wash or a restaurant, I walked a mile out of my way to stay away from him.
Nine years later I was twelve years old, and I still dreamed about that terrifying clown at Billy Waldman’s birthday party. I know it’s crazy. But clowns still freaked me out, still made my heart pound and my breath catch in my throat.
At the middle school Fall Carnival I totally lost it. I didn’t want to go to the carnival in the first place. I mean, ring toss games? Win a goldfish? Pay money to bounce on a trampoline? Make earrings out of seashells and beads?
Bor-ring.
But some of my friends were going, and I didn’t have anything else to do. So I tagged along with them.
I didn’t know a clown would be there.
I saw him all the way across the gym. He was a big guy with enormous floppy yellow slippers, a bouncing pillow belly, and a booming laugh.
He wore a red-and-white polka-dot clown suit with a bright-red ruffle around his neck. He had orange hair that stood straight up, a white face, a red bulb nose, a red-and-black grin painted from ear to ear.
“Christopher, do you want your face painted?” a girl at a card table asked. “It’s only a dollar.”
I didn’t answer her. I had my eye on the fat, ugly clown.
He was squeezing a small plastic horn, honking it in kids’ faces, bumping his pillow belly against kids, bellowing out his booming laugh.
I tried to keep away from him. But the aisle was very crowded and I got trapped.
The grinning clown bounced up to me and messed up my hair with his gloved hand. Beneath the makeup he had watery brown eyes. Sick-looking eyes.
He laughed at me and honked his horn in my ear. I tried to back away. But I was pinned against the wall of the dart-throwing booth.
He laughed again and brought his grinning face close to mine. “You could die, kid,” he whispered. He honked his horn in my ear before I could say anything.
“You could die LAUGHING!”
And that’s when I totally freaked.
I opened my mouth in a shrill, terrified scream. Then I ran, shoving kids out of my way, knocking things over, screaming…screaming.
I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. I could see their startled, confused expressions. I could hear all my friends calling my name.
I burst out of the gym.
“Christopher!”
I turned to see my teacher, Miss Bienstock. She came running after me, her coppery hair bouncing, her eyes wide with worry. “Christopher! What happened in there?”
“The clown,” I choked out. “He threatened me! He--he’s going to kill me!”
Miss Bienstock placed her hand on my shoulder. She narrowed her eyes at me and pursed her lips. “Christopher, you’re twelve. You know that isn’t true.”
“Yes, it is! He’s going to kill me! He’s going to kill me!” I shrieked.
She called my parents. They were waiting for me, stern and solemn, when I got home.
Mom kept biting her bottom lip. “We have to do something about this, Christopher,” she said. “Your father and I are very worried about you.”
Dad placed his hands on my shoulders and lowered his face to mine. “Clowns are funny--not frightening,” he said, his eyes locking on mine. “I thought you got over your silly fear when you were four.”
“It isn’t silly,” I told him. “That clown…he said I could die laughing.”
“That’s because he’s funny,” Mom said. “Die laughing. That’s just an expression.”
“We have to cure you of this,” Dad said, shaking his head. “We have to.”
The next Saturday Mom and Dad forced me to go to the circus with them. Farnum’s International Circus of the Stars. I fought and screamed. I tried to lock myself in my room.
But Mom and Dad dragged me to the car. “This will cure you of your clown problem,” Mom said.
“You’ll see,” Dad insisted. “Clowns are funny. Everyone loves clowns. You’ll see.”
We sat in the front row of the circus tent. I crossed my arms tightly in front of me and watched the circus acts. I gritted my teeth until my jaw ached.
I was so frightened….
When the clowns came tumbling and bouncing into the ring, I gripped the arms of my chair. My hands were cold and sweaty.
The silly clown music rang out over the tent. The clowns honked their horns and whistled. They ran around the ring i
n a wild circle, big shoes flapping loudly on the sawdust.
“Our clowns need a VOLUNTEER!” The ringmaster’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker. “We need a VICTIM from the audience!”
Before I could move or try to hide, a tall, skinny clown with yellow mop hair and an enormous blue bow tie grabbed me by both arms and lifted me into the ring.
I shut my eyes as the spotlight washed over me. I could barely hear the cheers of the crowd over the thudding of my heart.
“Nooooo,” I moaned. “Please. Pick someone else! Not me!”
I tried to climb out of the ring, back to my seat. But the yellow-haired clown spun me around. He pushed a huge daisy into my face and squirted a cold stream of water on me.
I heard laughter and cheers.
I struggled to breathe. “Please…” I begged weakly. But the clown pulled me into the act.
Four clowns surrounded me. They began bopping me with big shoes. The shoes were real. The clowns swung them at my head and pounded them into my stomach until I doubled over.
“Hey, wait! That hurts!” I gasped.
The audience roared with laughter.
The clowns poured buckets of confetti over my head. Then they smacked me with brightly painted two-by-fours.
“Owwww!”
The boards were real wood--not fake. Slap. Slap. They smacked my back, my shoulders. Pain shot through my body. I raised my hands to protect my head.
The audience cheered and laughed.
But it wasn’t funny. They were really trying to hurt me!
They tripped me. They pushed my face into a bucket of disgusting, sticky slime. They whacked my head with a fire hose and made me dive through a burning hoop.
Everything was real. They weren’t pretending. They slapped me and hit me and tripped me until my body throbbed with pain.
All the while the audience laughed and cheered them on.
Finally the act ended. Blowing their whistles, honking their horns, waving their hands at the crowd, the clowns ran giggling from the ring.
“Please…” I was dizzy, gasping for breath. “Please, someone help me…. Help me back to my seat.”
To my horror four clowns came running back out and circled me. Two of them hooked my arms behind me. They lifted me off the ground and carried me out of the ring as the audience continued to cheer.