The Ghost of Gruesome High Page 2

  “That’s too bad, Miss Hoyle,” he said, smiling and crossing to the blackboard. He picked up a piece of chalk and scratched the words: MASS HYSTERIA on the blackboard. “Who can tell me what Mass Hysteria is?” he asked, turning back and surveying the class.

  Hardly anyone was looking at me now. Everyone was focused on Mr. Greenwald. A kid named Andy, who I barely knew, raised his hand from the front row. “I know, Mr. Greenwald.” The teacher nodded at him and Andy continued. “It’s when more than one person sees or hears something that’s not really there.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Wozinski,” Mr. Greenwald said as he began pacing back and forth in front of the class. “An important aspect of Mass Hysteria, or Mass Delusion, is how absolutely real the experience seems to those involved. But it’s not real, of course. It’s all just in the minds of the people involved. It’s what we call a delusion.”

  I could feel my face turning red once again. Mr. Greenwald thought I was crazy! And now everyone would think I was crazy!

  I don’t think I have ever been so mad in my whole life! I wanted to yell, I wanted to make him stop smirking and assuming he knew what happened when he wasn’t even there! How dare he think I was crazy! How dare he!

  Well, he could think what he wanted. They could all think what they wanted. I knew I wasn’t crazy. Whatever we saw last night was real—and now I was determined that no force on Earth would stop me from finding out the truth and making that smirking teacher and everyone else eat their words! I’d show them! I’d show all of them!

  Chapter 4

  The aluminum man

  Now I could hardly wait for the lunch break so I could find Jason. I wasn’t mad at him any more. Now I needed his help.

  As I stepped out of the gym door on my way to lunch I was suddenly grabbed from behind and a hand was placed over my mouth. “Don’t scream, just—”

  But that was all I heard before I slashed back with my elbow and felt the sharp, bony part of my arm sink six inches into my attacker’s bread basket. The hand instantly fell away from my mouth and I twirled around to find Jason bent over, unable to catch his breath. He was staggering around in little circles, gasping.

  “Jason!” I tried to hold him but he waved me aside, still gasping for air. A crowd of kids gathered around. About half of them thought it was some kind of joke and began clapping as Jason stumbled into a trash can, almost knocking it over. Finally he managed to catch a breath and wipe the tears from his eyes. Still bent over he croaked: “O.K., now we’re even for last night.”

  I ignored the crowd of now-pointing and laughing kids and helped Jason to a bench under one of the big elm trees that dotted the campus. It took him a few more minutes to catch his breath. I tried not to smirk, but as much as I hated the idea of hurting Jason like that, part of me was rather pleased that my self-defense training had worked so well. If Jason had been a mugger or something I guess I could have taken pretty good care of myself. Score one for me!

  “Why. . . .” Jason tried, stopped, and then tried again. “Why did you do that?”

  “Don’t be a jerk,” I said lightly. “Someone grabbed me from behind. I did exactly what I was supposed to do. You should be proud of me.”

  Jason rolled his eyeballs up to look at me with his head still bent. “I’ve never been more proud in my life. In fact, I’m so proud I think I’ll throw up.”

  “Quit being such a baby,” I said, hoping I hadn’t really hurt him too bad. I was starting to feel guilty even though I didn’t have anything to feel guilty about. “What’d you grab me like that for, anyway?”

  “I need to talk and I wasn’t sure you’d listen,” he said, finally sitting up straight. He rubbed his stomach tenderly. “Man, you’ve got bony elbows.”

  “Forget about my elbows. Go ahead and talk. I’ll listen.”

  “O.K. I did some research on our ghost.”

  “Research? When did you have time to do any research? We just saw the thing last night.”

  Jason looked around, making sure no one could hear him. He motioned for me to lean in closer. “I was on the Internet all night. Or all morning. Whatever.”

  “The Internet? I didn’t know you—”

  “Shhhhhhh!” he said suddenly, looking around to make sure no one had overheard us. “It’s not something I want everyone to know about.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want people thinking I’m some sort of computer freakoid. O.K.?”

  Frankly I was shocked. And a little hurt he’d kept this side of him away from me so completely, but I tried to put that behind me—at least for now. “Well, what did you find, CompuNerdo?”

  He didn’t laugh.

  “Come on,” I said teasingly. “Lighten up. It’s me, remember? Your best friend? So what’d you find out about the ghost?”

  He frowned, then tried to smile. “This,” he said suddenly, holding out a piece of computer paper. “It’s an article about the very first guy to ever see the ghost!”

  I grabbed the paper and began to scan it. This was getting exciting. “What’s it say?”

  “It was some night watchman guy working for the contractor who built the school. Look. Here. He says the ghost only had one red eye. Our ghost had two.”

  I thought for a moment. “So, what does that prove?”

  “It doesn’t prove anything. But I thought it was interesting. And besides, the guy still lives right here in town. We could go talk to him.”

  I thought about it some more. I wasn’t quite sure why we wanted to talk to this guy—but I didn’t have any other ideas at the moment and I was determined to prove to Mr. Greenwald that I hadn’t been seeing things! “O.K. Right after school. Let’s get Jennifer and Weenie, and Alan to come, too. We’re all in this together!”

  “It’s a date,” Jason said, trying to leer—but he just ended up wincing in pain and holding his stomach.

  * * *

  According to the article, the man’s name was William Bell. Fortunately there was only one William Bell listed in the phone book.

  The address was way on the edge of town. It took us a good half hour to find the unmarked driveway once we had the street and general area pinned down. The driveway was a rutted dirt road that ran for about half a mile back into a forested area. It was sort of spooky even though it was still broad daylight, with thick trees and brush growing tall all along the road; in places the growth squeezed the road from both sides, like pictures I’d seen in biology class of constricted arteries. Leaves and branches scraped at the sides and windows of Wesley’s bug and he threatened more than once to turn around at the next opportunity.

  I guess it was a good thing that no opportunity to turn around presented itself, because suddenly the road seemed to widen and the trees and brush disappeared to the edges of a rather large and totally bizarre clearing.

  In the middle of the clearing was a house.

  Well, it was sort of a house.

  But it wasn’t like any house I’d ever seen before!

  “Look out!” I yelled.

  Wesley slammed on the brakes but not before his front bumper touched one of the-the things! They were all over the yard. Hundreds of them. They looked like balls of aluminum foil, with the centers pounded down in the shape of a weird-looking satellite dish. Each aluminum foil satellite dish was maybe a foot or a foot and a half across and they were everywhere!

  There were probably a hundred of them on the ground in front of the small house, several dozen in the trees around the house, and it looked like at least a hundred more were stuck all over the small house itself.

  And the house! I’m sure it had been a normal-looking little house in the woods at one time, but now it was completely covered in aluminum foil. Every square inch, except the windows, was covered in foil!

  The five of us got out of the car slowly, our mouths hanging open, just gaping at the weird sight. None of us had ever seen, or even imagined anything like this!

  “This-this is weird,” Jason finally s
aid. It was the obvious thing to say, but somebody had to say it.

  “You know,” Alan began, “maybe coming out here wasn’t such a good idea. The excessive use of aluminum foil is often a characteristic of a mentally unstable . . . .”

  But just then our attention was drawn to a sight even more bizarre than what we had already seen. An aluminum-foil-covered door suddenly opened in one wall of the aluminum-foil-covered house and a man stepped out.

  He was dressed from head to foot in aluminum foil! On top of his head was a ball of aluminum foil about a foot across which had been shaped into a sort of satellite dish. He walked in a stiff-legged fashion, as if he didn’t want to wrinkle his aluminum foil pants any more than necessary. He was waving one aluminum-foil-covered arm as he hurried toward us on stiff legs.

  “Do you kids have any idea what you’ve just done?” he shouted.

  None of us knew what to say. We were so shocked by the sight of this metal-looking man coming toward us, that none of us even moved. I’m not sure any of us even breathed.

  The aluminum man brushed right past us as if we weren’t there and went straight to the front of Wesley’s VW. He slowly and carefully bent down, bending at the knees and making sure to keep his head level so the satellite dish on top of it never varied from its sky-ward-pointing-direction, and tenderly, lovingly, straightened the aluminum-foil-satellite-dish that Wesley’s bumper had touched. He carefully aimed the “dish” back up into the sky.

  “It’s taken me months to get everything set just right, and then you come along and—” he suddenly stood straight up and slapped his aluminum-foil-covered hands against his aluminum-foil-covered sides. “Do you realize I was just picking up my first signal when you destroyed my relay? My first signal! Do you have any idea what that means? Well? Do You?”

  Wesley had no idea what to say. None of us did. Finally Wesley sputtered: “I’m really sorry. It was an accident.”

  The Aluminum Man put his aluminum-foil-covered hands on his aluminum-foil-covered hips and looked at us. “Well, no permanent damage, I suppose. What are you kids doing out here, anyway? This is private property. Go away. I’m terribly busy making contact.”

  “Contact?” I said in a squeaky voice. “Contact with who, sir?”

  The Aluminum Man suddenly looked confused. “With who? I’m not sure. I never thought to ask.” He pointed an aluminum-covered arm and hand toward the sky. “With them!” he said. “They’re out there, you know. All around us. I know. I’ve seen them. Now go away. I’m busy.”

  The Aluminum Man began walking back toward his aluminum-foil-covered house in that strange, stiff-legged walk of his as if he had totally forgotten we existed. His mind was already somewhere else. The others seemed too stunned to talk or even move. Suddenly I blurted out: “We’re here about the ghost!”

  The Aluminum Man stopped, then suddenly pivoted around on one stiff leg. “Ghost? Did you say ‘ghost’?” he asked.

  I swallowed for what seemed like the first time in several minutes and took a step forward. I took a deep breath and said: “We’re looking for a Mr. Bell. A Mr. William Bell.”

  The Aluminum Man frowned for a moment as if thinking. Then suddenly he took a step toward me and looked in my eyes. “Yes. Yes. That would be me. What is it you want? You’re not reporters, are you? You don’t look like reporters.”

  Jason stepped up next to me and put an arm around my shoulders. I can’t tell you how good that made me feel. At least I wasn’t standing out here all alone with this weird guy. “No sir. We go to high school. And last night we saw the ghost. The one at the school?”

  “Yes. Yes. I know that ghost. But it’s not a ghost, you know.”

  “It’s not?” I asked, hesitantly. “Then what is it?”

  Mr. Bell, the Aluminum Man, pointed at the sky again and yelled: “It’s one of them!” Then he started laughing, cackling actually, as if he’d just said the funniest thing in the world.

  I looked at Jason, and he looked at me. I glanced back and saw that the others were still standing just where they had been when Mr. Bell goose-walked toward us, with their mouths still hanging open. Even Alan was speechless for a change.

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” Mr. Bell said as he began to walk stiffly toward his house. “Come in, come in.”

  I looked at Jason again. All he could do was shrug. The two of us began to follow Mr. Bell toward his house. I glanced back again and noticed that the others, after a moment’s hesitation and quick questioning glances among themselves, followed. We were all a bit hesitant; none of us had any idea what to expect!

  Chapter 5

  The ghost with the golden touch

  Mr. Bell continued walking toward his aluminum-foil-covered house with stiff legs, like some weird space alien from a bad sci-fi movie from the 50’s. The closer we got to the strange house the slower I noticed we were all walking. By the time Mr. Bell pushed open the door and indicated for us to enter, the five of us were all bunched together sort of jockeying for last place; no one wanted to be the first to enter.

  But Mr. Bell looked at me and smiled. “Ladies first,” he said gallantly. He tried to bow but the aluminum foil satellite dish on top of his head threatened to fall, so he quickly straightened his head and just smiled at me.

  I was scared. I kept thinking about what Alan had started to say earlier about aluminum foil and crazy people and I didn’t want to end up cut into Bar-B-Q-sized pieces and labeled in his freezer or something. But he kept looking me in the eyes and smiling as he held the door open, so finally I tried to smile back, nodded my head, and stepped through the door.

  I have no idea what I expected to find inside the house, but what I found was far weirder than anything I ever could have dreamed up!

  All four walls of Mr. Bell’s living room were covered, every square inch, floor to ceiling, with TV monitors! Monitors of all sizes and shapes, and all of them were on! There must have been a hundred monitors lining the living room and every one of them had a different picture on it. I recognized an old episode of Leave It To Beaver on one monitor. Another was playing MTV. I recognized CNN. I don’t know what the rest of them were. I glanced through a doorway into what appeared to be the small kitchen—and it was filled with TV Monitors, too! I guess at least one of Mr. Bell’s satellite dishes must have been real and not just aluminum foil.

  I finally pulled my eyes away from the incredibly-hypnotic flashing of light and shadow from hundreds of TV monitors and looked at my friends. All of them were staring at the monitors with open-mouthed astonishment.

  No one said a word or made a sound for several seconds. Finally Mr. Bell smiled real big and said: “Impressive, isn’t it?”

  “Wow,” said Alan. “Where’d ya get all this?”

  “Here and there. There and here,” Mr. Bell answered cryptically. “When everything is just right, and my relay is aligned along magnetic lines, that’s when I get them.” He pointed one aluminum-covered hand at the largest monitor in the middle of the wall. “Right there. That’s where they make themselves known to me.”

  Jason slipped his arm around my waist and held me close. I’m not sure if he thought I was scared, or if he was scared. “Mr. Bell, the ghost? You were going to tell us about the ghost, remember?”

  Mr. Bell frowned, then crossed, still walking with perfectly stiff legs, to the only chair in the room. “Oh that!” It took him a good minute to twist and turn his body so he could sit down without bending his legs. “What do you want to know, young man?”

  “We, uh. . . .” Jason looked at me with a funny look on his face.

  I took over smoothly. “The first time you saw the ghost, what did you think it was?”

  Mr. Bell looked at me curiously, then nodded and smiled. “Excellent question, young lady. You’ve got a head on your shoulders. You’re the first person ever asked me that!”

  “Well?” I prodded after a moment of silence. “What did you think it was?”

  “If the truth be told,�
� the strange aluminum-foiled-covered man answered slowly, as if testing each word before he said it, “I didn’t rightly know what it was the first time I saw it. You see—and I hate to admit this to you kids—back in them days I was sorta known for hittin’ the bottle. Everyone in town knew it. I couldn’t get work for years. Not ‘till Mr. Thompson hired me to guard the construction site.” Suddenly the smile disappeared from his face and he pointed a serious aluminum-covered finger at us. “That was before! I gave all that up,” he continued quickly. “Not a drop in five years. No sir, not a drop! I swear on my mother’s grave!”

  The five of us were silent for a moment. We looked at each other, all thinking pretty much the same thing, I’m sure. We were all thinking we’d just wasted half a day coming out here to talk to this crazy old drunk. Mr. Bell must have been able to read our faces because he began struggling to stand up, keeping his legs straight. He reminded me a little of a turtle caught on its back. His legs kept thrashing about, and he kept trying his hands in different positions on the arms of the chair, looking for just the right leverage point. Finally I couldn’t help myself and crossed the room to help him. It took several seconds with the both of us working at it to get him standing up-right again. “Thank you,” he said to me stiffly. “I know what you’re thinkin’. You’re thinkin’ the same thing everyone else thought at the time. Just a crazy old drunk seein’ things. Well, it ain’t so—and I kin prove it! You just wait right here!”

  With that, Mr. Bell walked on his stiff stilt-like legs through another door into what appeared to be a small bedroom. I only got a glimpse through the door into the bedroom, but it, too, was covered with TV monitors. As soon as Mr. Bell entered the bedroom, Jason made a Big Face and whispered, “Wow! What a loon! Come on, let’s split before he comes back!”

  Jason moved toward the front door and the others moved to follow him. I stood my ground. “Wait,” I whispered forcefully. “We can’t just leave. That would be rude.”