The Haunted Serpent Page 7

  “Hey, guys?” Kenny spoke up, scratching his head shyly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. And obviously you know about a lot of weird stuff going on that I don’t know anything about. So maybe you can explain something that’s really bugging me. That cop back there—he was watching for stuff going on in the cemetery, right?”

  Spaulding nodded. “Yeah, so?”

  “So how’d he miss a whole gang of dead people running around? He’d have to be blind.”

  Marietta frowned. “You mean he ignored it? But if he wasn’t there to stop the grave robberies . . .”

  The blood drained from Spaulding’s face. “What if he was actually there to make sure they didn’t get interrupted? We can’t risk telling the police if they might be in on it.”

  There was a brief silence. Spaulding didn’t know about the others, but he was suddenly feeling more scared than he had felt the whole time.

  Then Lucy snapped her fingers. “Wait! I know—Spaulding’s parents!”

  Spaulding’s heart sank.

  “They’ll believe us! And they’ll know exactly what to do!” Lucy gave him a wide grin, like she expected a reward for the brilliant idea.

  Kenny scratched his head. “Why would your parents know what to do?”

  “They wouldn’t,” Spaulding muttered, heat creeping into his ears.

  “Ha!” Marietta crowed. “Even you admit they’re phonies? That’s sad.”

  “I’m not saying they’re phonies.” He scowled at his notebook, folding the corner of a page over and over.

  Lucy looked stunned. “Of course they’re not phonies! How could you fake what Silas and Serena do? They’re amazing.”

  “Wait.” Kenny held up a hand. “You don’t mean Silas and Serena Meriwether? From Peering into the Darkness: Investigations into the Inexplicable?”

  Spaulding gave a tiny nod.

  Kenny gasped. “I love that show!”

  “Me too!” Lucy squealed. The two high-fived, then performed a duet of the theme music. Marietta scrunched up her face in disgust.

  Spaulding raised his voice over the concert. “I know, I know, everybody loves the show. But the thing is, I don’t think they’d come help.”

  “No way!” Kenny laughed. “That’s crazy. If you told ’em what was going on, of course they’d come help. You’re their kid.”

  “You can tell them you’ve found a real ghost!” Lucy added. “And reverents!”

  Spaulding cleared his throat, which was uncomfortably tight. “I already tried. They didn’t believe me. They said they didn’t have time to waste on one of my . . . my false alarms.”

  “But your notebook proves it!” Lucy said. “You write everything down—you wouldn’t have made all that up.”

  Spaulding snorted and tossed the notebook aside. “To them, the only thing my notebook would prove is that I’m totally nuts.”

  There was a long silence. He didn’t look up, but he could sense the others looking at each other as if they were all hoping somebody else would figure out what to say.

  It was Marietta who finally spoke up. “They sound like idiots,” she said briskly, “as I suspected all along. Obviously you’re the smart one of the family.”

  He stared at her. Was she actually being nice? A grin spread across his face. “Well, thanks, pal.”

  Marietta looked more disgusted than she had when they’d watched corpses popping out of the ground. “All right, don’t be gross about it,” she snapped.

  “Hang on a sec,” Kenny interrupted. “Go back to the part about how you’ve found a real ghost?”

  Marietta, Lucy, and Spaulding sighed in unison.

  “Honestly, Kenny,” Marietta said, “try to keep up, can’t you?”

  Spaulding thought he might have trouble sleeping after all the excitement. In fact, he fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  Not long after, he found himself wide awake again. He rolled over onto his back. Had there been some sort of noise? A thump, maybe?

  He held his breath so he’d be able to hear even the faintest sound. Nothing. He was probably just jumpy because he had seen the living dead earlier—anybody would be. He rolled onto his side and tried some deep breathing.

  Thump.

  His eyes snapped open again. Slowly, he turned his head, trying to look as if he was moving in his sleep.

  A hunched figure stood in front of the window.

  Spaulding’s heart started hammering. It was a revenant, come to devour his brains. Or whatever the undead did to you. Maybe the brains thing was just in movies.

  Anyway, he wasn’t about to give up any body parts without a fight.

  “Get back, fiend!” he shrieked as he sat bolt upright and flung his pillow at the thing.

  The pillow passed right through it. And then he noticed the familiar greenish glow.

  He snapped on his bedside lamp and sighed. “Thanks for the heart attack, Mr. R.”

  Mr. Radzinsky folded his arms indignantly. David peered up over the foot of the bed, blinking in the sudden light. “I’d think you might be grateful! I came to say I accept your apology.”

  “Oh.” Spaulding fell back onto his pillow and thought this over. “Okay. I’m glad. And I am sorry. I shouldn’t have used you to impress people.”

  The ghost sniffed and smoothed the lapels of his bathrobe. “Quite right.”

  “I still don’t like you showing up in my room in the middle of the night, though,” Spaulding added.

  “Fine, fine. It’s just that I saw you sneaking in late, so I thought you’d still be awake.”

  “What? I was so careful! How’d you see me?”

  “Oh, I sit out on my roof and watch the neighborhood when my insomnia is acting up. Say, would you like to come over? The view is really quite remarkable, and I’ve noticed you like to sit on your roof as well.”

  “Now?”

  “Why not? You can’t sleep anyway.”

  He tried to protest that he had been sleeping quite well, thank you very much, but Mr. Radzinsky wouldn’t take no for an answer. At last, Spaulding rolled out of bed and followed him into the hall, through the window, and out to the thinking spot.

  The ghost flitted ahead to his own roof and stopped where a dormer window in the attic looked out onto a small, sloped eave. “Hurry up!” he called excitedly. “Oh, that’s right—I suppose you’ll have to go through the house. Well, get on with it, then. The door’s unlocked.”

  Spaulding scooted to the edge of the porch roof and lowered himself carefully, feeling for the railing with his toes. “Why I’m letting someone incorporeal push me around like this, I’ll never know,” he muttered as he dropped into the dewy grass.

  David slithered ahead, looking back every now and then to be sure Spaulding was following. The snake led him through the side door and up two flights of stairs to the attic. There, the dormer window creaked slowly open, apparently of its own volition. Spaulding sighed. He was learning that Mr. R never missed a chance for some ghostly theatrics.

  He swung his legs over the low sill. “This’d better be good, Mr. R. I’ve gotta get up early for school in the morning, and—whoa.” He fell silent. The view was pretty remarkable.

  “It’s even better if you stand up,” Mr. Radzinsky said proudly. “You can see for miles.”

  “Uh . . .” He glanced down. The ground looked awfully far away.

  “Oh, fine. You can still see a lot sitting—look, there’s the gas station, and the shopping center, and the baseball field. I can watch the games from here.”

  From this height, Spaulding realized just how tiny Thedgeroot really was—it looked like a little collection of blocks scattered in the folds of the hills. The moon was almost setting, and a heavy layer of clouds was slowly moving across the sky like a blanket being drawn up. It hung thickest over one particular part of the valley. Spaulding had a feeling it was where the factory stood.

  At that moment, the clouds suddenly billowed up into a tall plume like a thun
derhead or a mushroom cloud. As it sprouted, the plume flickered with a sickly yellowy-green light.

  “Holy cow!” Spaulding cried. “Did you see that?”

  Without even glancing over, Mr. Radzinsky’s mouth turned down. “Ah, yes—it’s one of the factory’s busy nights.”

  Spaulding gasped. “You know about the factory? I thought I was the only one!”

  The ghost snorted. “Oh, I know about it, all right. And mark my words, other people do, too. But no one talks about it. No one wants to cross the richest man in town. So the place just runs in secret, pouring its filth into our air and water.”

  Spaulding stared at him. “Is that why it’s secret? So they can pollute as much as they want?”

  Mr. Radzinsky shrugged. “I think so. I wrote numerous letters of complaint about it when I was alive, believe me, but it didn’t do any good.” He seemed to drift off in thought. Then he continued slowly, “In fact, that’s my last living memory. I was sitting at my desk, writing a letter—a very scathing one, as I recall—and then it all goes dark.”

  Spaulding chewed his lip. This was a delicate subject. He’d have to be careful with what he said if he didn’t want to make Mr. Radzinsky upset, but he had a feeling it was important that he find out more.

  “I’ve wanted to ask you about that, sir,” he said carefully. “How exactly did anyone know what happened to you? Since there wouldn’t have been a . . . you know, a body . . .”

  Mr. Radzinsky peered at David to be sure he wasn’t listening. He leaned closer. “That’s a mystery I’ve often pondered myself,” he whispered. “You see, there’s a hole in my memory. The next thing I remember is waking at my desk again. But my body was gone. I knew weeks had passed because my newspapers had piled up on the porch. And I found an article about my death, so I read about what happened.”

  Spaulding thought this over. “But how did the reporter know what happened? Who figured it out?”

  “Precisely what I wondered. The article was vague on that point—on every point, really. And I had no family or friends to look into it, so that was that. You’re the only person who’s ever shown any interest in what happened to me.” Mr. Radzinsky smiled sadly.

  Spaulding smiled back, trying not to show how depressing the whole thing was. Poor Mr. R. What a sorry life he’d had. Spaulding would have to cut him a little more slack, even when the ghost was acting like a jerk.

  “Maybe somebody came by the house and found David looking, you know . . . full?”

  Mr. Radzinsky frowned. “But that’s the strange part, don’t you see? They tried to locate him, but no one could. If they’d found him, he’d be in the pound.”

  The ghost looked so upset at that thought that Spaulding decided to change the topic to something more cheerful. “Do you think I could read your letters sometime? I bet they were really good.”

  Mr. Radzinsky looked pleased and flustered. “Oh! My goodness! Yes, I—I suppose that would be all right. I’ll get out my files for you. They’re all there, except that last one. It was gone by the time I woke up, too. I suppose it’s moldering in some police evidence locker somewhere.” He heaved a sigh.

  Spaulding fell silent. If only he could help the ghost with the puzzle of his death. But maybe at least having the chance to talk it over with someone after all this time would give him some peace.

  They stayed on the roof until the clouds covered the stars. At last, Spaulding began to shiver. He wished Mr. Radzinsky and David a good night and left them there, the snake dozing and the ghost looking out at the sky.

  Morning broke dreary and gray. Everything was wrapped in a thick, damp fog. Even the houses across the street were invisible. It was not the kind of day that made one feel any better about knowing the evil dead were wandering around out there somewhere. Who knew what they could be up to?

  And that was just the problem—he didn’t know. Spaulding didn’t know much about the living dead. It wasn’t the sort of thing his parents investigated, so he’d never thought he’d need any knowledge on the subject.

  Which meant it was time for some serious research.

  Right after breakfast, he grabbed his bike and set out. His destination was only a few blocks away—the Thedgeroot Public Library. It was a rickety old building, repurposed from its Gold Rush days as a church and hardly modernized. The steeple leaned as if it might fall off in a stiff wind, and the bell was gone. Spaulding pushed through the dark wooden doors and into a dim lobby, sunk in a dusty silence.

  At the back of the reading room, an elderly man sat reading quietly in an armchair under a pair of tall arched windows. A teenage girl was slumped in front of one of the public computers, tinny music faintly audible from her headphones. Other than those two, he had the place to himself. Even the checkout desk was empty.

  He did a quick search on the catalog computer—an ancient-looking machine that roared and whirred angrily at being woken from its sleep. Then he headed into the shelves, got the books he wanted, and settled at a table in a corner. He’d hardly brushed the cobwebs off the first book when a hand fell onto his shoulder.

  “Spaulding Meriwether! Always so studious. It warms a teacher’s heart.”

  Oh, great. He knew that sugary voice without even looking.

  “Mrs. Welliphaunt,” he said, trying to smile but not particularly succeeding. “What are you doing here? I mean, not that I’m not glad to see you.” He draped an arm over his stack of books, trying to look like he was just casually leaning sideways. Mrs. Welliphaunt would definitely be the type to get all weird if she saw what he was reading.

  But her teacherly instincts must have recognized the signs of a guilty student instantly. Before he could move, she snaked a hand behind his arm and whisked the whole stack away.

  “What is all this? Oh, my—Necromancy: The Darkest Art? Raising the Dead and You? And—ugh—The Necronomicon?” She read the titles aloud like she’d tasted something bad, her lip curling further with every word. “Spaulding! Why ever are you reading such trash?”

  Spaulding glared at her and snatched the books back. “If you must know, I have an assignment. On . . . the history of necromancy. Anyway, it’s not your business—this is the public library, not the school library.”

  A sickly sweet smile bloomed on her face. “As it happens, Mr. Meriwether, I volunteer here at the public library. And as such”—she grabbed the books away once again—“I am fully authorized to enforce the library’s rules. I am afraid your hands are simply too dirty to peruse these books. See you in class, my dear!”

  She swept away without another word, every book the library had on the subject of necromancy firmly clamped under her arm. He could practically feel smugness radiating from her as he stomped out the doors in defeat.

  Monday morning, the moment everyone had taken their seats, Mrs. Welliphaunt rang her silver handbell. Spaulding noticed how intently she was smiling at him. His stomach tightened.

  “Mr. Meriwether, would you come up front, dear? We must have a little discussion.”

  Spaulding forced himself to ignore the urge to bolt out the door, or fling himself out a window, or do anything at all rather than walk up to Mrs. Welliphaunt’s desk.

  She sighed deeply as he approached. “After I spoke with you yesterday,” she said, “I took the liberty of contacting your teachers to find out who had assigned such an unpleasant and inappropriate topic.” She kept her voice low, but Spaulding was sure it was only so that everyone would try even harder to listen in. The room was so quiet he could practically hear Katrina smirking.

  “Imagine my surprise when I discovered you had no such assignment!” Mrs. Welliphaunt continued. “This makes me concerned for you, mein Wurstchen—very concerned. Not only does this incident reveal an unhealthy fixation on morbid topics, but it shows that you are a liar as well.”

  There was a rustle of surprise throughout the classroom. Spaulding could feel every eye in the room fixed on him, like tiny red-hot pinpricks in his back.

  “I am
not angry with you, dear. I fear for you. But never let it be said that Gretchen Welliphaunt ignores the plight of a child with a diseased mind! I’ve arranged help for you. Once a week, instead of going to study hall, you will go speak to the school psychologist.”

  There were a few gasps and stifled giggles. Katrina cackled.

  Spaulding’s face felt so hot he was surprised his skin hadn’t melted. “This is ridiculous! I don’t need to see a psychologist,” he said, a little louder than he meant to.

  Mrs. Welliphaunt clapped a hand to her chest. “Ach, my! Such outbursts—such rage—oh, good heavens. It is worse than I thought.”

  Katrina’s hand shot into the air. “I’ve been worried about him since he got here, Mrs. Welliphaunt,” she said, wide-eyed. “He talks about crazy stuff. You can ask anyone, we’ve all heard him.”

  Spaulding opened his mouth to protest again but then clamped it shut. Mrs. Welliphaunt was going to twist anything he said. He didn’t know why she was out to get him, but she certainly was. If she decided to say he was having anger problems, his word would never hold up against hers. Better to stay quiet for now. The psychologist would see he wasn’t the problem.

  Mrs. Welliphaunt dismissed him, and he slunk back to his desk, trying not to hear the whispers and snickering all around him.

  After lunch, when he’d normally be heading for study hall, Spaulding lingered in the hallway, chewing his nails. Could he get away with skipping the appointment? Maybe he should go home and tell Aunt Gwen he was dropping out.

  Before he could make up his mind, Mrs. Welliphaunt appeared at his locker.

  “I wanted to make sure you didn’t forget your appointment,” she announced, giving him a sad look, like he had a terminal disease and it pained her to see him going downhill. “I know children never want to do what is best for them.”

  She took hold of his sleeve as if he might run away and marched him down the hall to an unmarked door. She waited until he was inside before closing it firmly behind him.