The Final Nightmare

The Final Nightmare
The House on Cherry Street, Book Three
Rodman Philbrick and Lynn Harnett


For Moira, Miranda, Molly, and Annie


1
My sister and I were alone. Really alone. And something inside the house on Cherry Street wanted to hurt us, just like it had hurt the baby-sitter.
“Jay-sonnnnn! Jason come here!”
That was Sally, my four-year-old sister. Sally was outside, watching the ambulance take the baby-sitter away after she’d fallen and gotten knocked out.
I’d gone back into the house—a house I knew was haunted—to call my parents. I wasn’t going to tell them about the ghost because they’d never believe me.
In as calm a voice as possible I was going to ask my parents to come right home. Come home before it was too late.
But the phone number was gone. I had no idea how to reach them.
“That’s it,” I said to myself. “I’ve got to get us out of here.”
I headed for the front door, determined not to spend another moment in that creepy old house. No way.
Just as I got to the door, the lock snapped shut!
Eerie laughter echoed from inside the walls. Laughter of a witch who’d been dead for a hundred years. Laughter from an empty tomb.
I pounded my fist on the door. It was no use—the house had taken me prisoner.
“Jayyy-ssssssonnnnnnn!” something whispered from the dark.
It wasn’t my sister’s voice. It wasn’t the voice of anything alive.
“Get out!” I shouted. “Get out of this house and leave us alone!”
Who was I kidding? You can’t scare a ghost away by shouting. The thing was here to stay—and now it wanted to keep me here forever, too.
Maybe someday I’d be the ghost in the walls. Maybe I’d be the spirit who wandered around at night, repeating the moment of my death.
I shuddered at the thought—I had to get out before the creeping fear drove me crazy.
“Jason, come quick!”
That was Sally, calling from outside. It sounded like she was in trouble.
I raced to a window, but it slammed shut just as I got there.
Then something moved behind me. I whirled around, but all I could see were shadows. Dark, murky shadows reaching out to touch me.
I closed my eyes. “Get a grip,” I told myself. “Your eyes are playing tricks again.”
But when I opened my eyes, something was reaching for me.
“Jason!”
A hand came out of the darkness and grabbed me.


2
It was my sister. Standing there tugging on my arm as she looked up at me.
“How’d you get in here?” I demanded.
“I walked in the door, silly,” she said.
I looked and saw moonlight coming in through the open door. And just a minute before it had been locked.
“Come on,” I said, grabbing Sally’s hand. “We’re getting out of here!”
I expected the door to slam shut just as we got there, but it didn’t. It was like the house had decided to let us go for the time being.
As we ran down the driveway, away from the house, I looked back. Expecting to see a small, ghostly face in the window. The face of the little boy who’d died there a long time ago.
But the windows were empty. Like a row of broken glass eyes, as dark as the shadows that lurked inside the house.
“Come on,” Sally said, urging me on. “They’re almost here!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Mom and Dad,” she said. “They’re coming back.”
I took hold of Sally and stopped her in her tracks. “Hang on,” I said. “Don’t get your hopes up. Mom and Dad aren’t due back until the end of the week.”
Sally shook her head and stamped her feet. A sure sign that she was about to have a temper tantrum. For once in my life I couldn’t blame her—she’d been awake all night, running from the spirits that had taken over the house. And with the baby-sitter gone she wanted her mommy back, just like any four-year-old.
“Sally, listen to me,” I said. “We’ll be okay. We’ll go over to the neighbor’s house and use the phone from there.”
The moonlight was fading from the night sky. Soon it would be morning—maybe things would look better in the light of day. But Sally wasn’t in the mood to wait.
“They’re coming, Jason. Bobby told me they’re coming.”
Bobby told her. Great. Bobby was the little boy who’d died in the house. Bobby was a ghost. Bobby was scary but he wasn’t bad really. Just confused. And lonely. He wanted Sally to stay with him—even if she had to become a ghost too.
Unfortunately, Bobby wasn’t the only ghost. There was an evil witch who hated everything, especially children, even dead children like Bobby. And this horrible house wanted to kill me and Sally. I knew now that only ghosts could live here.
Of course my parents didn’t believe in ghosts—they thought Bobby was an “invisible friend” my sister had invented. They never heard the phantom voices or saw the skeleton creature that came out of the dark when you least expected it. They blamed it on my overactive imagination, or bad dreams, or the usual creaks and groans peculiar to an old house. And so they had gone away on a business trip, leaving my sister and me with Katie, a teenaged baby-sitter.
Katie hadn’t believed in ghosts, either. Not at first. But now she knew better. Better than to ever return to the house on Cherry Street.
“Mommy!” Sally cried. “Daddy!”
She let go of my hand and ran away before I could stop her. I shouted but she kept going, disappearing into the row of tall, shadowy pines that surrounded the house and hid it from the main road.
“Wait for me!”
I took off as fast as I could, but slipped and fell on the slick pine needles. WHAM! I landed hard enough to knock the wind out of me.
When I got my breath back I’d lost sight of my little sister.
“Sally,” I called out. “Come back!”
But there was no answer.