01 - Welcome to Dead House Read online

  Squinting into the darkness cast by the tree, I saw Mr. Dawes standing beside them along with another, older man. And I saw that the rows of long benches built into the ground were filled with people. Not a single empty space.

  Everyone in town must be here, I realized.

  Everyone except Josh and me.

  “They’re going to kill Mom and Dad,” Josh whispered, grabbing my arm, squeezing it in fear. “They’re going to make Mom and Dad just like them.”

  “Then they’ll come after us,” I said, thinking out loud, staring through the shadows at my poor parents. Both of them had their heads bowed now as they stood before the silent crowd. Both of them were awaiting their fates.

  “What are we going to do?” Josh whispered.

  “Huh?” I was staring so hard at Mom and Dad, I guess I momentarily blanked out.

  “What are we going to do?” Josh repeated urgently, still holding desperately to my arm. “We can’t just stand here and—”

  I suddenly knew what we were going to do.

  It just came to me. I didn’t even have to think hard.

  “Maybe we can save them,” I whispered, backing away from the tree. “Maybe we can do something.”

  Josh let go of my arm. He stared at me eagerly.

  “We’re going to push this tree over,” I whispered with so much confidence that I surprised myself. “We’re going to push the tree over so the sunlight will fill the amphitheater.”

  “Yes!” Josh cried immediately. “Look at this tree. It’s practically down already. We can do it!”

  I knew we could do it. I don’t know where my confidence came from. But I knew we could do it.

  And I knew we had to do it fast.

  Peering over the top of the trunk again, struggling to see through the shadows, I could see that everyone in the theater had stood up. They were all starting to move forward, down toward Mom and Dad.

  “Come on, Josh,” I whispered. “We’ll take a running jump, and push the tree over. Come on!”

  Without another word, we both took several steps back.

  We just had to give the trunk a good, hard push, and the tree would topple right over. The roots were already almost entirely up out of the ground, after all.

  One hard push. That’s all it would take. And the sunlight would pour into the theater. Beautiful, golden sunlight. Bright, bright sunlight.

  The dead people would all crumble.

  And Mom and Dad would be saved.

  All four of us would be saved.

  “Come on, Josh,” I whispered. “Ready?”

  He nodded, his face solemn, his eyes frightened.

  “Okay. Let’s go!” I cried.

  We both ran forward, digging our sneakers into the ground, moving as fast as we could, our arms outstretched and ready.

  In a second, we hit the tree trunk and pushed with all of our strength, shoving it with our hands and then moving our shoulders into it, pushing… pushing… pushing…

  It didn’t budge.

  18

  “Push!” I cried. “Push it again!”

  Josh let out an exasperated, defeated sigh. “I can’t, Amanda. I can’t move it.”

  “Josh—” I glared at him.

  He backed up to try again.

  Below, I could hear startled voices, angry voices.

  “Quick!” I yelled. “Push!”

  We hurtled into the tree trunk with our shoulders, both of us grunting from the effort, our muscles straining, our faces bright red.

  “Push! Keep pushing!”

  The veins at my temples felt about to pop.

  Was the tree moving?

  No.

  It gave a little, but bounced right back.

  The voices from below were getting louder.

  “We can’t do it!” I cried, so disappointed, so frustrated, so terrified. “We can’t move it!”

  Defeated, I slumped over onto the tree trunk, and started to bury my face in my hands.

  I pulled back with a gasp when I heard the soft cracking sound. The cracking sound grew louder until it was a rumble, then a roar. It sounded as if the ground were ripping apart.

  The old tree fell quickly. It didn’t have far to fall. But it hit with a thundering crash that seemed to shake the ground.

  I grabbed Josh and we both stood in amazement and disbelief as bright sunlight poured into the amphitheater.

  The cries went up instantly. Horrified cries. Angry cries. Frantic cries.

  The cries became howls. Howls of pain, of agony.

  The people in the amphitheater, the living dead caught in the golden light, began scrambling over one another, screeching, pulling, climbing, pushing, trying to claw their way to shade.

  But it was too late.

  Their skin began to drop off their bones and, as I stared open-mouthed, they crumbled to powder and dissolved to the ground, their clothes disintegrating along with them.

  The painful cries continued to ring out as the bodies fell apart, the skin melted away, the dry bones collapsed. I saw Karen Somerset staggering across the floor. I saw her hair fall to the ground in a heap, revealing the dark skull underneath. She cast a glance up at me, a longing look, a look of regret. And then her eyeballs rolled out of their sockets, and she opened her toothless mouth, and she cried, “Thank you, Amanda! Thank you!” and collapsed.

  Josh and I covered our ears to shut out the ghastly cries. We both looked away, unable to keep watching the entire town fall in agony and crumble to powder, destroyed by the sun, the clear, warm sun.

  When we looked back, they had all disappeared.

  Mom and Dad were standing right where they had been, tied back-to-back, their expressions a mixture of horror and disbelief.

  “Mom! Dad!” I cried.

  I’ll never forget their smiles as Josh and I ran forward to free them.

  It didn’t take our parents long to get us packed up and to arrange for the movers to take us back to our old neighborhood and our old house. “I guess it’s lucky after all that we couldn’t sell the old place,” Dad said, as we eagerly piled into the car to leave.

  Dad backed down the driveway and started to roar away.

  “Stop!” I cried suddenly. I’m not sure why, but I had a sudden, powerful urge to take one last look at the old house.

  As both of my parents called out to me in confusion, I pushed open the door and jogged back to the driveway. Standing in the middle of the yard, I stared up at the house, silent, empty, still covered in thick layers of blue-gray shadows.

  I found myself gazing up at the old house as if I were hypnotized. I don’t know how long I stood there.

  The crunch of tires on the gravel driveway snapped me out of my spell. Startled, I turned to see a red station wagon parked in the driveway.

  Two boys about Josh’s age jumped out of the back. Their parents followed. Staring up at the house, they didn’t seem to notice me.

  “Here we are, kids,” the mother said, smiling at them. “Our new house.”

  “It doesn’t look new. It looks old,” one of the boys said.

  And then his brother’s eyes widened as he noticed me. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  The other members of his family turned to stare at me.

  “Oh. I… uh…” His question caught me by surprise. I could hear my dad honking his horn impatiently down on the street. “I… uh… used to live in your house,” I found myself answering.

  And then I turned and ran full speed down to the street.

  Wasn’t that Mr. Dawes standing at the porch, clipboard in hand? I wondered, catching a glimpse of a dark figure as I ran to the car.

  No, it couldn’t be Mr. Dawes up there waiting for them, I decided.

  It just couldn’t be.

  I didn’t look back. I slammed the car door behind me, and we sped away.

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