The Tanglewood Terror Read Free Page B

everything else, but I barely noticed them, because I knew that sooner or later the witch was going to jump out and shriek at us. I looked up ahead and saw a vertical line of daylight, which I guessed was the exit door. Here it comes, I thought—the last big frightbefore we leave. I hung back so Tom would get the worst of it. That was when I felt something in my hair and took a swipe at it. My hand met another hand—a bony hand with long, misshapen nails. I heard a low, throaty cackle and felt a blast of warm breath that smelled of old meat.…
    And I started bawling. I couldn’t help it. I was shrieking and crying, and Dad had to carry me out like a colicky baby. Tom told kids at school, and life was hard for a while. I still felt a little knot of shame whenever I went to the haunted house, like someone there might recognize me and remember.
    “It’s okay to be scared,” I told Brian and Allan.
    “Hey, I’m not scared!” said Allan.
    “But it’s okay if you are,” I said.
    We went in and saw silhouettes of skeletal trees cut out of black poster board. Some years the haunted house was a walk through a creepy mansion, and sometimes it was a cave. This year it was a path through the woods.
    The first display was three stuffed bears—not teddy bears, but taxidermy of real bears—propped up in chairs, licking their plates. A child’s blue smock and buckled shoes were at the center of the table, so it wasn’t porridge on those plates. After that there was a headless horseman, who had a jack-o’-lantern for a head but no horse.
    “I don’t get this one,” Allan said at the next display. There was a black curtain draped from the ceiling. In front there was just a sign: WELCOME TO KEATSTON .
    “It’s the town that disappeared over two hundred years ago,” Brian told him. “It burned down or something.”
    “What do you mean,
or something
?”
    “It means the buildings besides this one were all reduced to splinters and everyone was gone,” I said.
    “But there weren’t any ashes,” Brian added in a whisper.
    Allan looked at me, and I nodded. “Nobody knows exactly what happened.”
    “You’re both making it up.”
    “Well, it’s not like I saw it for myself, but that’s what everyone says,” I told him. “They have this old picture showing the town burning down, and people running around and screaming.” I looked for it, hoping to see the picture we always saw on school trips. It wasn’t in its usual spot. Some things are too scary for a haunted house. “And there’s writing on it that says something about a fire.…”
    “ ‘The devil’s fire may burn again,’ ” Brian quoted. “ ‘God’s wrath will purify the earth. The seeds of redemption are in the people.’ ”
    “Yeah, the devil’s fire. You remembered all that?”
    “Our class was here last month,” Brian said. “I memorized it.”
    Allan looked at the sign again with new appreciation.
    “Let’s move on,” I said. I was all for respecting the past, but there was a game on.
    We moved on to see a graveyard. A couple of zombies climbed out of their graves, but it wasn’t very convincing. Past the graveyard was a witch, smiling and cackling as she poked at a pot of goop, stirring up clouds of smoke. It wasn’t the same witch as the one who used to be there, and frankly, the new one wasn’t fit to carry her broomstick.
    •   •   •
    We got home during halftime. The Pats were up by ten points. I was sorry I’d missed it but glad they were ahead. Brian went outside to do whatever, and I told him not to get lost in the woods.
    As it turned out, I’d missed the good part of the game. The Broncos tied it up in the second half and won in overtime. As soon as the game was over, I went out back and finished stomping down the mushrooms in the yard. I blamed them for the Pats losing. It wasn’t rational, but I didn’t want to be rational.
    “Whatcha doin’?” Brian asked, coming out of the woods.
    “Nothing.