The Haunted Serpent Read online

  Mr. Radzinsky’s eye sockets hollowed. He stretched upward, looming toward the ceiling, growing horribly thin, like a spider made of bones and shreds of skin. “I. Was. Not. Buried,” he said through his teeth. “I was EATEN!”

  This time, Spaulding didn’t stick around to see if Mr. R. would calm down.

  He leaped to his feet and ran for the door—but he’d forgotten about David. The snake was lying coiled just behind him. Spaulding tripped over the snake and stumbled a few steps, arms pinwheeling, until he crashed into the mudroom door.

  It swung open, smacking into something—two somethings—on the other side. Twin yelps of surprise rang out. Spaulding scrambled up and scurried into the mudroom to join Marietta and Lucy. Just behind him came Mr. Radzinsky and David, the snake hissing and the ghost quivering with fury.

  “What is this?” Mr. Radzinsky turned his frozen yellow grin from the girls to Spaulding. “Brought your friends to see the freak show, is that it?”

  “No, Mr. R—”

  The roof of the small room creaked and popped. Spaulding hunched his shoulders around his ears, waiting for the ghost’s rage to reach its breaking point.

  Instead, he simply vanished. The door slammed.

  Spaulding felt a twinge of guilt amidst the fear. He hadn’t thought Mr. R would be quite that upset about having other people see him.

  He looked at Lucy and Marietta, who were gaping at the house and looking nearly as gray as ghosts themselves. “Well?” he demanded.

  Marietta tore her eyes away from the house long enough to notice the grin he wasn’t quite able to hide.

  “Fine. You win,” she huffed. “Ghosts are real, you were right, blah blah blah. But you have to admit it doesn’t make all the stuff you say sound any less stupid.”

  After that, it was a lot easier to convince Marietta that staking out the cemetery wouldn’t be a waste of time. She was still worried about it being dangerous, but she was too curious to say no. (Lucy, of course, only had to be convinced not to go immediately.)

  The three agreed to meet up at midnight again the following night. Spaulding wondered if he’d have any problem getting past Aunt Gwen this time—letting him go out in the middle of the night once was one thing, but making a habit of it might be a bit much even for her.

  But as soon as he set foot in the hall at eleven-forty-five, he heard the familiar racket of snoring coming from his great-aunt’s room. He didn’t even have to tiptoe.

  He suppressed a sigh. Every now and then, he kind of wished he had to be at least a little sneaky when he left the house late at night.

  Lucy and Marietta certainly did—they were still gasping from their narrow escape when they finally arrived at the lot. Apparently their father was a light sleeper and highly vigilant about his children’s whereabouts. Spaulding felt a pang of envy, even if he was a little surprised to find out their parents were divorced. One parent at home still beat zero.

  “Why do you live with your aunt, anyway?” Lucy asked after he told them how easily he’d left the house. “Are your parents dead?”

  Marietta gave Lucy a whack to the back of the head, but Spaulding said quickly, “It’s okay—they’re not dead. They’re just . . . really busy. It’s easier for me to live with Aunt Gwen.”

  The girls exchanged a shocked look, though Marietta at least tried to cover it up.

  Lucy wasn’t so tactful. “Your parents are too busy for you to live with them? That’s totally weird.”

  Spaulding scowled and stomped a pinecone on the sidewalk with a satisfying crunch. “If you must know, they also think their work is too dangerous for me to be around. I don’t tell people about it because it sounds like I’m bragging.”

  Marietta raised an eyebrow. “Bragging? Why? What do they do?”

  He hesitated. He really didn’t want to brag. Or humiliate himself. It was always difficult to predict which would result when this subject came up. “Well . . . they’re paranormal investigators. They’re on that ghost-hunter TV show—”

  “Not Peering into the Darkness: Investigations into the Inexplicable?” Lucy demanded. He nodded.

  “I love that show!” she squealed. Then she launched into a spirited rendition of the show’s theme music, which was mostly just eerie whistles, beeps, and whispers.

  Marietta, meanwhile, did not look nearly so impressed. “Your parents are phony TV ghost-hunters?” she gasped. “That show—I’ve never seen anything so ridiculous. All they do is wander around dark rooms going, ‘Did you hear that? Did you hear that?’ and you can’t hear whatever it was, and then nothing else ever happens.”

  She shook her head and gave him the all-too-familiar pitying look again. Clearly, this news had made her respect for him sink even lower. He’d have thought that was impossible without actually digging a hole in the ground.

  He started walking again. “It’s not like I’m thrilled about it, Marietta. Let’s just get to the cemetery, okay?”

  An awkward silence fell as they continued down the hill. It was so quiet, in fact, that when a voice rang out behind them, they all jumped a foot in the air.

  “Wait up!” the voice called again.

  Spaulding turned. Kenny Lin was coasting down the hill on his bike, his tires nearly silent on the smooth pavement.

  “Scared you guys, huh?” Kenny asked, grinning as usual. “Whatcha doing out this late? You taking ’em to a party or something, Marietta?”

  Marietta glared. “Taking Ludwig to a party? Yes, of course that’s exactly what we’re doing. You’re so perceptive, Kenny.”

  “Hey! I could be going to a party,” Lucy protested.

  “Yeah, except Chuck E. Cheese isn’t open this late.”

  “I’m not a baby!” Lucy wailed.

  “Can we please try to focus here?” Spaulding interrupted. “We’re still only a block from home. Someone could hear us and call our families.”

  “What are you doing?” Kenny demanded again. “Maybe I should call your families.”

  “Like you’re supposed to be out at midnight,” Marietta scoffed. “What are you doing?”

  He shrugged. “I just like to ride my bike around at night sometimes. It’s nice and quiet. I can think about stuff.”

  Spaulding blinked. He hadn’t thought of Kenny as someone who’d be looking for quiet thinking time. Come to think of it, he’d kind of decided he didn’t like Kenny before he’d ever even talked to him.

  To make up for being so hard on Kenny before—even though Kenny didn’t know about it—Spaulding decided to be extra-nice now. “We’re going to investigate the grave robberies at the cemetery,” he said. “Do you want to come?”

  Kenny’s eyes widened. “Are you joking?”

  Spaulding and Lucy shook their heads. Marietta looked embarrassed and stared off into the distance.

  “That. Is. So. Cool.” And before anyone could say another word, Kenny zoomed off down the street ahead of them.

  “Awesome!” Lucy clapped her hands and skipped after him. “The Four Investigators, on the case!”

  “Oh, gag,” Marietta said.

  When they neared the graveyard, Spaulding waved everyone over to a belt of trees and shrubs that edged the sidewalk. They hunkered down in the long grass.

  “Now, look,” he said as everyone fell silent. “This is an awful lot of people for a stakeout, so everybody has to be really quiet—”

  “Oh, man!” Kenny elbowed him. “There’s a cop car in the parking lot. This is so cool—we’re staking out the same place the cops are staking out!”

  Sure enough, over at the edge of the parking lot a police car lurked in the shadows.

  “Shh!” Spaulding hissed. “Now it’s even more important that we’re qui—”

  “Stupid cop!” Lucy burst out. “What if nothing happens because he’s here?”

  Marietta gasped. “Ludwig! What’s gotten into you? It’s a good thing if graves don’t get robbed.” She shot a glare at Spaulding. “If she ends up warped by all this, I am s
o holding you accountable.”

  “Shhh!” Spaulding flapped his hands at them. “Can we all please try to be a little more professional? If we don’t keep it down, nothing’s going to happen.” He glanced at Marietta out of the corner of his eye. “I mean, not that we want anything to happen.”

  At last, everyone settled down. Seconds passed, then minutes. Spaulding glanced at his watch. It was just on the stroke of midnight. If he were superstitious, this would be the perfect time for something to—

  CRACK!

  Spaulding jumped. Something had made a hollow, wooden sound—kind of like a branch snapping in half, or someone kicking a door in. But nothing was stirring in the cemetery. Had he imagined it?

  He looked at the others. Marietta’s eyes were huge. Lucy and Kenny were clutching each other in terror.

  Crreeeeak.

  Spaulding and Marietta exchanged a glance. What is that? she mouthed.

  He shook his head. No idea.

  The sounds of muffled creaking and cracking continued. Then a thick sort of grinding, shifting noise, like a giant mouth noisily chewing, started. There was no sign of movement, but then, they couldn’t see much from their hiding place.

  “We have to get closer,” Marietta whispered. She took the lead, picking her way cautiously through the bushes and dead grass. The others followed.

  The moon was still close to full, but its light only filtered down through the trees in patches and made the shadows darker. The black wrought iron of the cemetery fence was almost invisible in the gloom. They only realized they’d reached it after Lucy walked into it with a clang. The four quickly scrambled over the low railing, Kenny giving Lucy a boost.

  The giant-mouth-chewing sound was clearer now. It sounded kind of like digging, only not with a shovel. More of a gnawing, tearing kind of digging.

  Gophers, Spaulding realized. That’s what it reminded him of—like putting your ear to the ground near a tunneling gopher . . . only big.

  Marietta suddenly dug her fingers into his arm.

  “Ow,” he hissed, trying to pry her fingers loose.

  She ignored him, staring intently at something up ahead. He followed her gaze.

  At first, all he could make out was something wriggling around in the grass in front of a tombstone. For one second, he wondered if it actually might be gophers—lots and lots of gophers . . .

  Then he noticed the fingers.

  A slimy, grayish hand had clawed its way out of the earth. It fumbled at the grass, trying to find a grip. More dirt welled up beside it. Another hand appeared. Slowly the arms and body that were attached to the hands—by some stringy-looking business Spaulding didn’t want to look at very closely—followed them up out of the ground.

  The corpse reared back its head. The mouth fell open, and a gurgling snarl erupted from its festering depths.

  “I guess they can’t all be like the man in the suit,” Spaulding whispered.

  “I’m gonna barf,” Marietta said.

  “Shh! The last thing we want is for that thing to notice us,” Spaulding hissed.

  The thing in question was now getting awkwardly to its feet. It pulled itself upright by the tombstone and then stood still, swaying slightly. It seemed confused (as one might expect, given the condition its head was in).

  Somewhere nearby, an engine chugged to life. The sound seemed to be coming from the direction of the woods. The revenant heard it too—it paused for a moment with its head cocked, then set off unsteadily across the grass toward the sound.

  “It’s leaving,” Kenny whispered.

  “Don’t relax just yet,” Marietta said.

  The giant-gopher noises hadn’t stopped. A few feet away, the ground in front of a whole cluster of headstones was heaving up and down slightly, almost like gentle waves on a pond. Unlike gentle waves on a pond, this was followed by a collection of rotting bodies bursting forth in a shower of dirt and gravel. A smell wafted across the graveyard—a smell so foul it made the air itself seem thick and green and sticky.

  Slowly, the creatures got to their feet and tottered off in the same direction as the first. Several were nothing but bones and sinew. Others could pass as living, if you didn’t look too closely. A few smaller bits and pieces—fingers, toes, a nose or two—were left behind but either weren’t important enough to go back for or maybe wouldn’t be missed until later.

  “I think we should follow them,” Spaulding announced.

  “I think we should go home,” Lucy said in a small voice.

  “I think I’m going to puke if I watch them for another second,” Kenny mumbled, sinking to the ground.

  Marietta hauled him to his feet. “Spaulding’s right. If we don’t find out where they’re going, what’s the use of being here at all?”

  “Okay, okay.” Kenny swallowed hard. “But I’m not going to look at them.”

  They let the creatures get a good distance ahead before following them across the cemetery and into the woods. Along with the sounds of their footfalls crunching through the leaves and branches, the rumbling of the engine continued.

  “I bet I know where it’s coming from,” Lucy said. “Someone’s driving on that dirt road we rode our bikes on. I told you it was a shortcut to town.”

  Spaulding chewed his lip. “But why would someone be driving out there at midnight?”

  A few minutes of stumbling through thick underbrush brought them to the dirt road. The sound of the engine grew louder, almost drowning out the constant, low groans of the undead.

  Lucy, who was in the lead, suddenly held up a hand. “Duck!” she hissed as she threw herself behind a clump of bushes. The others crouched down next to her. Wordlessly, she pointed through the trees.

  At first Spaulding didn’t see anything. But then a faint gleam of moonlight on metal caught his eye—the outline of something very large and rectangular, not more than twenty feet ahead.

  “It’s a truck,” Kenny said, just as Spaulding realized what he was seeing. “A big truck.”

  The truck was idling with its headlights off, and even though it was huge, it was well camouflaged by the overgrown woods. No one was visible in the dark cab.

  Spaulding shivered. There was something unsettling about the massive vehicle, so out of place on a small dirt road, its lights off and the driver unseen. All around it, the revenants milled aimlessly in a smelly, groaning crowd.

  Kenny turned to him, brow wrinkled. “I don’t like this, man. We’re too close. If one of ’em looks over here, they’ll see us. We found out where they were going, right? That’s what we wanted. Now let’s go, before—”

  Marietta poked him. “Shh! Something’s happening!”

  In the truck’s cab, the overhead light flicked on. The door on the far side opened, then slammed shut. Someone had gotten out of the passenger seat.

  At the back of the crowd, the groans grew louder as the creatures jostled and shoved each other. They seemed to be trying to get away from whoever was approaching on the far side of the truck.

  And then a slim figure in a white lab coat appeared. Even in the dim moonlight, Spaulding recognized the tense stride and the tight blond bun instantly. Dr. Darke.

  The doctor strode to the back of the truck as if the revenants weren’t even there. She threw open the rolling door and pressed a button to lower the loading ramp. Then she pulled a coil of something slender and rope-like from the pocket of her lab coat. She turned to face the undead creatures, who seemed to know something was about to happen. They moaned and gurgled uneasily, the crowd breaking up as they wandered off in different directions.

  A few of the more energetic corpses seemed to form an idea in what passed for their heads. They massed together and shuffled back toward Dr. Darke, their hands outstretched. The awkward shambling became faster, more coordinated. The listless groans became a low, thick growling.

  The doctor didn’t appear concerned. With a lazy flick of her wrist, she uncoiled the object she had been holding at her side. It was a whip.
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  The leader of the group lunged forward, gray teeth snapping.

  Dr. Darke gave her arm one quick, practiced twitch. The whip lashed out. The revenant staggered backward.

  Spaulding looked away as a new split opened in the revenant’s already decaying skin. However vicious and mindless the creature was, Spaulding was still sickened to see it clutch its head and moan like an injured animal.

  With a few more lashes, the doctor corralled the aggressive gang and rounded up the stragglers. Soon the crowd of corpses was in a neat line. Keeping the whip snapping expertly around their ankles, she marched them up the ramp of the truck. As the last one boarded, she lifted the ramp, yanked down the door, coiled her whip, and marched back to the passenger side of the truck.

  The engine revved. In a few moments, the truck was gone. The only sign it had been there at all was a cloud of dust and a few broken branches dangling from the trees. The roar of the engine faded. The night was silent again.

  Lucy finally broke the silence. “What can you do with that many dead people?” she asked no one in particular. “What good are they?”

  Spaulding looked up from his notebook, where he was already busily scribbling notes by flashlight. “Maybe they’re just cheap labor for the factory? No paid vacation, no sick days? Anyway, at least now we can all agree it’s connected to Slecht-Tech.” He glanced at Marietta to see how she was taking the blow.

  Unsurprisingly, she was scowling. “Fine, so it’s connected to Dr. Darke. I suppose we can assume that means Mr. Von Slecht is involved, too. But they don’t manufacture anything anymore, remember? Don’t tell me you think he’s got them doing computer tech stuff at the corporate office.”

  Spaulding started gnawing his fingernails. “The smoke coming out of the factory . . . they’re making something in there, I know it. We have to get a look inside.”

  “But now we can just go to the police!” Lucy said. “We know they’ll find evidence if they check out the factory—the place must be crawling with revenants. We’ll phone in an anonymous tip and let the cops figure out what to do.”