Don't Forget Me!

  “Let go of me!” she wailed. She squirmed and struggled. She grabbed my arms and tried to pry them off her. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  My heart pounded so hard, my chest felt about to explode. “You’re coming to the basement,” I said through gritted teeth. I gave her another hard shove. “I’m going to prove to you—”

  “Do you want money?” she demanded. “Is that it? You want money? Okay. I don’t have much in the house. But I’ll give you what I have. Just … don’t hurt me. Please—don’t hurt me.”

  She looked so terrified, I dropped my hands. I let her go. “Mom!”

  She backed away, her eyes wide with fear. “Money?” she whispered. “Is that what you want? If I give you money, will you go?”

  “I don’t want money!” I screamed. “I want you to remember me! And Peter!”

  “Okay, okay.” She trembled in fear. “I remember you. Yes. I do. I remember you. Is that good?”

  She’s terrified of me, her own daughter, I realized.

  I could feel tears welling in my eyes. But I knew I had no time to waste.

  She’s not going to believe me, I saw. She’s not going to recognize me. She’s too frightened to listen to me, to let me prove anything to her.

  What can I do? What?

  I spun away from her. And lurched down the hall to the basement door. “Peter—I’m coming!” I called down the stairs. I jumped into the stairwell and began racing down, taking the stairs two at a time. “Peter, I haven’t forgotten you. I’m coming!”

  I heard footsteps above my head. My mother running across the floor. And then I heard her on the phone, her voice trembling, shrill, so frightened. My own mother, desperately calling the police.

  “Yes. A strange girl. She broke into the house. She’s acting very crazy. I—I think she’s dangerous. Yes. Send someone. Right away.”

  “I’m not a strange girl,” I said out loud.

  I wanted to run back upstairs and argue with her. Plead with her to believe me. Beg her to remember me.

  But I heard a creaking sound. On the other side of the basement.

  I turned away from the stairs and made my way toward the little room in back. Late afternoon sunlight slanted in from the basement windows, sending long, orange stripes across the cluttered floor.

  “I’m coming, Peter,” I called, my voice hollow, ringing off the stone walls. “I’m here.”

  At the entrance to the backroom, I stopped with a gasp.

  The trapdoor—it was creaking open. Slowly. Stone grinding against stone.

  I could see only blackness beneath it. A dark pit that appeared to stretch down forever.

  Slowly, slowly, the door lifted. As it opened, the blackness seemed to spread across the floor, over the room. Shutting out the sunlight, shutting out all light.

  And then, out of the darkness, a thin, silvery figure appeared.

  He seemed to form in front of my eyes, shimmering wetly against the opening trapdoor.

  I cried out when I recognized my brother. He stood so stiffly, trapped inside the thick layer of mucus. His hair, his face, his entire body wrapped tightly in that wet, clear covering.

  He staggered toward me stiffly, and then raised one arm, motioning to me. Behind the thick goo, I could see his glasses, and behind them, his eyes, staring out at me so blankly.

  “Peter—!” I choked out.

  He was almost colorless. Entirely gray. I could practically see through him.

  He motioned with the one hand. And his mouth opened slightly. Opened, then closed, forming a bubble in the jelly so tight over his face.

  Opened, then closed. And then I heard a single word: “Danielle!”

  I took a step toward him. But my legs were trembling so hard, I nearly fell.

  “Danielle …” he repeated, the name bubbling in front of his mouth. “Come, Danielle.” He stretched his gray hand to me.

  I froze. “Huh?” His hand grazed mine, sticky and wet, and so cold, cold as death.

  “Come,” he said, the word muffled behind the bubbling slime.

  “N-no—!” I gasped. I pulled back.

  “They’ve forgotten you too,” he said. As he reached for me, the thick gelatin over his arm stretched with him. “Danielle, you are a Forgotten One now. You must come with us. Come.”

  Peter took a slow, heavy step away from the open trapdoor. And behind him I saw another figure. A girl, pale as my brother, covered in the wet, sticky goo. She climbed up silently from the pit, her lifeless eyes locked on me.

  Behind her another gray kid. And then another.

  The forgotten kids.

  They climbed out one by one, moving in slow motion, stepping out of the dark pit and circling me.

  I tried to break away. But they locked hands and formed a tight ring around me.

  “Come with us….” they moaned. And the moan became an ugly chant. “Come with us…. Come with us…. Come with us….”

  “You are forgotten too,” Peter said. “You are one of us.”

  “Come with us! Come with us! Come with us!”

  Peter grabbed me with his cold, sticky hands. “Come with us, Danielle.”

  The circle of kids tightened around me.

  Peter pulled me, pulled me hard toward the black pit. I could feel a chill of cold air from below. The sour odor of decay floated up to me.

  My stomach lurched.

  Peter pulled me closer. Down, down, down to the foul blackness …

  “Come with us…. Come with us…. Come with us….”

  And as the darkness closed around me, I opened my mouth in a scream of horror. “NOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  Still screaming, I broke loose.

  With a hard, desperate tug, I tore myself from my brother’s sickening grasp. I lowered my shoulders, and with another cry, with scream after scream bursting from my lungs—I tore through the ring of chanting kids.

  And hurtled toward the stairs. The foul smell floated with me, heavy and rank. The cold mucus stuck to my hands. My brother’s words repeated in my whirring mind: “They’ve forgotten you too…. They’ve forgotten you too….”

  No, I’m not! I told myself as I forced my trembling legs up the stairs. I’m not forgotten! I’m not!

  “I’ll make Mom remember!” I shouted down. “Somehow, I’ll make Mom remember, Peter!”

  I reached the top of the stairs, my chest heaving, my lungs aching.

  I slammed the basement door shut and started down the back hall.

  The floor spun beneath me. The walls appeared to close in until I felt as if I were running through a dark, narrow tunnel.

  What can I do? I asked myself. The whole house seems to be closing in on me. As if I don’t belong here anymore.

  How can I prove that I’m telling the truth? How can I make Mom remember us?

  As I reached the front stairs, a figure jumped out to block my way.

  “Dad!” I screamed. “You’re home! Please—tell Mom—!”

  “Who are you?” he demanded angrily. “You’d better get out of this house. The police are on their way.”

  “No, Dad—listen!” I pleaded.

  “Get out—now!” he shouted.

  “No! I live here!” I screamed. “It’s my house too! You have to remember us! You have to!”

  He dove for me. Tried to capture me.

  I dodged to the side. Fell onto the steps. Landing hard on my knees and elbows. Pain shot through my whole body. But I ignored it. Ignored it and scrambled up the stairs on all fours.

  At the top, I climbed to my feet. And stared down the long hall.

  What can I do? How can I make them remember?

  My room! I decided. I’ll show them my room. Maybe that will remind them who I am. Maybe that will force them to remember.

  I took a few steps—and then stopped.

  I stared at the doors on both sides of the hall. Which room is mine? Which one?

  “Oh nooooo,” I moaned.

  My room. I didn’t remember my roo
m.

  I’m forgetting too. I’m forgetting everything.

  Sick with horror, I sank against the wall.

  “I’m lost,” I murmured. “I give up. I’m lost.”

  Then something down the hall caught my eye.

  I stared at it. Stared at it, forcing myself to remember what it was.

  And suddenly, I had an idea.

  A rectangle of yellow light fell over the framed photograph on the wall. The photograph of Peter’s teddy bear wearing the eyeglasses gleamed as if in a spotlight.

  “Yes!” I cried, staring hard at it.

  I knew it had something to do with Peter. I didn’t remember exactly what. But I knew it was important to my parents.

  I tore down the hall, reached up with both hands, and started to pull the photo off the wall.

  “What are you doing?” a voice screamed angrily. “Put that down!”

  “Get out of this house!”

  Mom and Dad came bursting down the hall, their faces red with fury.

  “She’s up here, Officer!” Dad shouted downstairs. “We have her trapped in the hall!”

  The framed photo stuck against its wire. I struggled to pull it free.

  “What are you stealing, young woman?” Mom demanded. “Let go of that!”

  “Are you crazy? Coming in here like this?” Dad cried.

  He grabbed my arm. “Get away from there, miss. The police are here.”

  A blue-uniformed police officer, tall and blond, hands tensed at his sides, moved into the hallway.

  “Here she is,” Mom called to him, pointing to me. “She’s crazy! Crazy! She just broke in and—and—”

  The officer moved toward me menacingly. “Young lady, you’d better come with me,” he said softly, blue eyes narrowed on me coldly.

  He reached out to grab me.

  I tugged the photograph free. My hands were shaking so hard, I nearly dropped it.

  I spun around. And raised the photo high.

  I held it up to my parents. And I screamed: “NOW TEDDY CAN SEE HOW CUTE I AM!”

  I watched Mom and Dad freeze. They stood like open-mouthed statues.

  Will they remember? I asked myself. I gripped the frame tightly, held it up as if holding on to life … holding on to everything I knew.

  Will they remember?

  No.

  They don’t remember.

  They’re just standing there. Staring at it. Staring at me as if I’m crazy.

  No … no …

  And then I saw a single tear run down Dad’s cheek.

  Mom uttered a cry. And I saw her eyes glisten with tears. “Peter … ” she whispered.

  “Peter … ” Dad echoed. He stared hard at me. “Danielle!”

  He remembered!

  “Oh, Danielle,” he cried. His voice broke. “I’m so sorry.”

  And then the three of us were wrapped in a tearful hug.

  “You remember!” I cried, still gripping the photograph tightly. “You remember us!”

  “Danielle, please—forgive us!” Mom said, pressing her tear-stained cheek against mine.

  The police officer shook his head. “What’s going on here?” he demanded. “Do you know this girl?”

  “Yes,” Dad told him. “She’s our daughter. We—we can’t explain, Officer. We won’t be needing you now.”

  “She—she didn’t break in?”

  “No,” Dad told him. “You can go. Sorry for the trouble. We made a terrible mistake.”

  The policeman headed away, grumbling to himself, muttering and shaking his head.

  “Peter,” I choked out. “We have to hurry. We have to get Peter.”

  I led them down to the basement. “He—he’s in the little back room,” I told them.

  But no.

  The room stood empty. Bare, concrete floor. Stone walls. No trapdoor. No opening that led to an endless, black pit.

  We’re too late, I realized. He’s gone.

  Mom and Dad stared at me, bewildered. “Where is he?” Mom whispered. “You said—”

  “Gone,” I murmured. “Lost.”

  I couldn’t stand it. I felt about to explode.

  I realized I still had the teddy bear photo. I raised it high, as high as I could reach. “Peter, we remember you!” I screamed. “We remember you! We remember you!”

  Silence.

  The longest silence of my life.

  And then the floor shook, and I heard a low, rumbling sound.

  The rumble became a loud groan. The floor raised up … up…. The trapdoor slowly, heavily creaked open.

  We all gasped as Peter stepped forward.

  “We remember you!” I cried. “We remember!”

  The thick mucus covering dropped from his body, fell off in chunks, rained to the floor, and then melted.

  Peter stepped forward, blinking, testing his arms, his legs, stretching.

  And then we were hugging. Celebrating. Celebrating the greatest family reunion of all time!

  Later I was in Peter’s room, helping him unpack some cartons and put the stuff away. It felt good to be doing something useful, something normal.

  I kept glancing at the photo of the teddy bear with its eyeglasses. We had set it up on top of the dresser. The bear smiled down at us, as if it too was happy about being remembered.

  “Tell me again about how you hypnotized me,” Peter said, stacking comic books on a shelf.

  “I didn’t hypnotize you,” I answered. “I only thought I did. I thought everything was my fault. But it was never me. It was the evil in this house. But we defeated this house. Thank goodness we defeated it!”

  Peter thought about it a while. “I just don’t understand how—” he started.

  But Mom interrupted, calling from downstairs. “Addie is here!”

  I pushed a carton away and hurried down to meet her. “Hi! I’m so glad to see you!” I cried.

  She laughed. “Well … I’m glad too!”

  I led her into the living room.

  “Everything is back to normal,” I told her. “My brother is perfectly fine. And I’m okay. And everything is great! I’m just so happy!”

  Addie let out a relieved sigh. “I’m so glad to hear it, Brittany. I was so worried about you.”

  I stared at her. “Excuse me? What did you call me?”

  She stared back at me. “Brittany, of course.”

  My brother poked his head into the room. “Hi, Addie. What’s up?”

  She grinned at him. “What’s up with you, Craig?”

  I gasped and grabbed Addie by the shoulder. “What did you call him? Craig? You called us Brittany and Craig?”

  Addie frowned. “Of course. What’s your problem, Brittany? I should know your names, shouldn’t I? I’ve known you two ever since you moved here with your aunt and uncle.”

  My mouth dropped open. I gaped at her in horror.

  Addie laughed. “Come on. You didn’t really forget your own names! You’re joking, right? Right?”

  Go Deeper Into This Nightmare…

  Soon after Danielle Warner moves into her strange new house, a place they call Forget-Me House, she hypnotizes her brother Peter. Just a joke, but the joke turns into a nightmare when Peter isn’t able to come out of his trance.

  As Danielle watches in horror, her brother seems to be forgetting everything, including who she is. It doesn’t take Danielle long to realize that Peter is in terrible danger—especially after what she sees in the basement of her house!

  Is the hypnosis causing Peter’s horrifying behavior—or is it something about Forget-Me House?

  Forget-Me House

  No one is sure where Forget-Me House is. Alex P. from Silver Springs, Maryland swears his friend knew someone who lived in the house and that it was definitely located in Maryland. Others claim that it’s in Vermont not far from Burlington.

  But all accounts including Danielle Warner’s share certain similarities. “First you start to forget,” Alex P. explains, “and then everyone forgets yo
u.” Here’s Eloise G.’s description: “It’s like a big eraser. First the eraser erases what’s inside your head and then it starts erasing you.” See Chapter 17 of DON’T FORGET ME! for Danielle’s description.

  Probably the creepiest part of Danielle’s story is the slimy substance that surrounds the Forgotten Ones. R.L Stine says it’s clear and is like that gross jelly that surrounds a ham that comes out of a can. This matches other descriptions of a substance known as ectoplasm. In the movie Ghostbusters, ectoplasm was the gooey stuff the ghosts threw at people. But the term is much older. It goes back to the late 1800’s. In those days people were very interested in trying to get in touch with ghosts and spirits, and there were many mediums to help them. Mediums were people who claimed that they could speak to the spirits. One very famous medium R.L. Stine read about used to make slimy goo come out of her nose and mouth. Then as the spectators gasped in amazement, the goo, which was called ectoplasm, would form into a shape that looked like a human arm or other body part.

  Is ectoplasm the stuff that Danielle saw? She doesn’t know, and she added: “I don’t want to think about it. If you saw it, you’d want to forget it too.”

  Hypnosis

  Hypnosis is real, not a fake. Through hypnosis, it is possible to put people into a trancelike state, where they will be very suggestible—in other words, they will do what the hypnotist tells them to do. Hypnosis is used to help people quit smoking or get over fears. It is sometimes used to ease pain. Hypnosis is also used to help people remember things from their past—and it can also be used to make people forget.

  There are many false ideas about hypnosis. Here are some key facts:

  > People are not asleep when they are hypnotized. They are awake and hear what is going on.

  > Not everybody can be hypnotized, but nearly all children can be.

  > Hypnotized people will not commit crimes or do things that are totally against their beliefs.

  Many people claim that through hypnosis, they can make contact with ghosts and spirits. Mediums—people who attempt to talk to spirits—usually go into a trancelike or hypnotic state before they make contact with the spirits. Is that what happened to Peter Warner in DON’T FORGET ME!?