Ghost Hunt: Chilling Tales of the Unknown by Jason Hawes, Grant Wilson, Cameron Dokey Read Free Book Online Page B

until I get all the way down the stairs.
    Bill held his breath. Stretched out his leg. And put his foot down.
    Aaaarrrr.
    The house gave an unearthly groan.
    Bill raced down the last four steps. He didn’t care if he made any noise. He dropped to his knees at the bottom of the stairs. His fingers fumbled in the dark, searching for the knob on the door to his secret place: a tiny room underneath the stairs.
    Got it!
    He pulled open the door and crawled forward on his hands and knees. He twisted sideways. He barely fit. But he could squeeze in. He had to.
    Bill reached out and closed the door.
    Darkness. Black. Complete. Total.
    Bill squished himself into a sitting position. His neck was twisted. But at least he didn’t hit his head like last night.
    That was when he had hidden the flashlight and his other supplies. They were in the deepest, darkest corner of his hiding place. But Bill didn’t reach for the flashlight. Not yet. He didn’t want to turn it on. Not until he was sure it was safe.
    Suddenly he felt it coming.
The cold.
A cold so fierce it made his stomach muscles quiver. Bill’s lungs burned. It was like he was breathing solid ice.
    He bit down on his tongue. Otherwise, his teeth would start chattering. The noise might give him away.
    He listened, but he heard nothing. No sound. No clue. No warning. But he
knew
. Bill knew he was no longer alone.
    Outside his hiding place, there was a man. A man that only Bill could see. A man who shouldn’t be there at all.
    But he
was
there. Night after night. Always at the same time. The man came up the stairs. He went past Dave’s room. Past Mindy’s room. On and on and on, straight toward Bill’s room. Straight toward Bill.
    And there was nothing Bill could do to stop him.
    Then every night the man vanished while standing right inside Bill’s bedroom door. Like a puff of smoke. The man was there one minute, gone the next.
    Because of the nightly visitor, Bill couldn’t sleep. He nodded off at his desk during school. His homeroom teacher called his mom. Then Mom asked if he wanted to sleep in Dave’s room, and Bill realized the truth—Mom was scared too. She knew there was something wrong in their house. She just didn’t know what to do about it.
    But Bill did. He had a plan.
    Bill felt something change that he couldn’t describe. He realized he was breathing easier. It wasn’t so cold anymore. The man was past and on his way up the stairs. On his way to Bill’s empty bedroom.
    Now!
Bill thought.
    He stretched out his arm. His fingers found the flashlight. They wrapped around it. His thumb found the switch and turned it on.
    After the total dark, the small flashlight beam seemed bright as the sun. Bill blinked his eyes. Then, quickly, he found the rest of the things he had hidden. Paper. Pen. Envelopes and stamps.
    He set the flashlight on the floor and leaned over the paper. He uncapped the pen.
    This has got to work,
he thought.
It’s just got to.
Dear Ghost Hunters,
    he wrote.
Please help us.

     
    “Okay,” Jason said. He stretched. “Great follow-up meeting, guys. All our cases are wrapped. That doesn’t happen very often. Maybe it’s time for a vacation.”
    “Not so fast,” TAPS researcher Mark Hammond said. He had to raise his voice. Everybody else in the room was laughing.
    “Uh-oh,” Mark’s twin brother, Mike, said. “Somebody pushed Mark’s serious button.”
    Mark smiled at his brother. “I think this could be
very
serious,” he said. He opened a big envelope and pulled out several sheets of paper. “Bill Turner thinks so anyway.”
    “Who’s Bill Turner?” Grant asked.
    “He’s the kid who wrote this.”
    Mark picked up the top sheet of paper. He held it out so the others could see.
    Grant looked at the letter. “Why don’t you read it to us?” he suggested.
    “Yeah,” Mike said. “But no funny voices.”
    “Nothing about this is funny,” Mark said. He gripped the papers tightly. “Trust me.”
Dear Ghost