The Final Nightmare Read Online Free PDF Page B

suppose you’re right,” said Dad. “We’re out of our depth with this. I’ll go see the real estate agent in the morning.”
    I wanted to jump up and down for joy.
    My parents still didn’t believe in the haunting. But they were going to get us out of here. By tomorrow, maybe.
    Sally and I could survive anything for one more night.
    Couldn’t we?

15
    No matter how much I tossed and turned I just couldn’t get to sleep that night.
    I tried sitting up and staring out at the windows, but the tall, shadowy trees made the yard look spookier than ever. So I got back in bed and pulled the covers over my head and tried to relax.
    Not a chance. A million thoughts were racing through my mind. Thoughts about the ghosts and what they really wanted and why it had been my rotten luck to spend summer vacation in a haunted house.
    I even tried counting sheep, but nothing worked.
    Maybe if I fixed myself a glass of warm milk. That was supposed to make you sleepy, right?
    But that would mean getting up and going downstairs to the kitchen, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. Because whenever I ventured outside my room at night in this house, something terrible happened.
    I was thinking about that when I heard somebody tiptoe down the hall to Sally’s room. Must be Mom, checking to see that my little sister was okay.
    I lay there waiting, expecting to hear Mom go back to her own room. But there was nothing.
    Nothing but a faint, creaky noise.
    Something was wrong.
    I got up and went out into the darkened hallway.
    Sally’s door was a few inches open, like always.
    And light was coming from the door. Not the little night lamp by her bed, but a strange, glowing light.
    I pushed open the door.
    â€œSally?” I whispered.
    The bedclothes were rumpled and bunched up. But the lump underneath was too small to be Sally. Wasn’t it?
    Maybe I was wrong.
    I tiptoed to the bed and eased the blanket back. Winky, the stuffed bunny, lay in the center of the mattress where Sally should have been.
    The room seemed to get darker as the bottom dropped out of my stomach.
    I heard a moaning noise and whipped around, only to realize it was coming from me.
    Then I noticed that Sally’s closet door was open. She liked it closed. Maybe something had frightened her—a dream maybe—and she was hiding in there.
    Without Winky? I knew that was a no-hoper even as I tiptoed to the closet. The door creaked as I eased it open the rest of the way and looked in.
    It was black in there. Totally dark.
    I leaned in. “Sally?” No answer.
    It was a deep closet. I got down on my hands and knees and poked my head in, hoping to see Sally curled up in a corner.
    I didn’t see Sally. But what I did see hit me like a punch in the stomach. Sally’s favorite nubby blanket was balled up and stuck into the back of the closet like a rag!
    I pulled out the old blanket. Was it my imagination or was it still warm? Sally might have been here just a moment ago. But where had she gone? Down the hall, maybe, to my parents’ bedroom.
    Right. She got scared and went to Mom and Dad.
    Pleased with my new idea, I was starting to back out of the closet when I saw something much worse than a discarded balled-up blanket.
    A faint light was coming from the back of the closet. A sickening, greenish light. And shimmering in the light, stuck in a crack in the wall, were two long blond hairs.
    Sally’s hair.
    As I reached out the greenish light grew brighter and the crack shot up the length of the wall!
    I fell back on my heels. A doorknob was forming before my eyes right in the wall! It was an old metal doorknob—and I knew what I was supposed to do if I wanted to get Sally back.
    Swallowing past the huge lump in my throat, I made myself reach up and touch the doorknob. It was icy cold. But it turned easily.
    The door that I knew couldn’t be there swung open without a sound. Cold air poured out on me,