Free 22 - Ghost Beach by R.L. Stine - (ebook by Undead) Page A

years?
    Harrison’s face hovered darkly in the dipping, waving torchlight. He pushed
his long, stringy hair off his forehead with his free hand. And then he startled
us all by puckering his dry lips and letting out a long, high-pitched whistle.
    My heart skipped a beat. I gasped. What was he doing? Why was he making that
shrill sound?
    He stopped. Then whistled again.
    I heard the scraping of footsteps, rapid footsteps on the stone cave floor.
    And then a low, dark figure came loping toward us out of the darkness.

 
 
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    A monster! I thought.
    A ghost monster.
    It uttered low, menacing growls as it neared. Its head bobbed low, and two
red eyes flared as the creature bounded into the light of the flaming torch.
    “Oh!” I cried out as I saw that it was a dog. A long, lean German shepherd.
    The dog stopped a few feet in front of us. When it saw Harrison, it bared its
teeth. Its growl became a ferocious snarl.
    Dogs can recognize ghosts, I remembered.
    Dogs can recognize ghosts.
    The dog’s red eyes caught the light of the torch as it turned to Louisa and
her two brothers.
    It reared back on its hind legs—and began to howl and bark.
    “They’re the ghosts!” Harrison Sadler cried triumphantly to Terri and me,
pointing.
    Snarling, the big dog leaped at Sam.
    With a cry of fright, Sam raised both arms to shield himself.
    The three kids edged deeper into the cave.
    The dog barked fiercely, baring its jagged teeth.
    “You—you really are ghosts?” I cried out.
    Louisa let out a pained sigh. “We never had a chance to live!” she cried.
“The first winter—it was so horrible!” Tears rolled down her cheeks. I saw
that Nat was crying, too.
    The dog continued to snarl and rage. The three kids backed farther into the
dark chamber.
    “We sailed here with our parents to start a new life,” Sam explained in a
trembling voice. “But we all died in the cold. It wasn’t fair! It just wasn’t
fair!”
    The rain started up again. The wind blew sheets of water into the cave
entrance. The torch flame dipped and nearly blew out.
    “We never had a life at all!” Louisa cried.
    Thunder roared. The cave seemed to shake. The dog growled and snarled.
    And as I stared at the three kids in the wavering light, they began to
change.
    Their hair dropped off first. It fell in clumps to the cave floor.
    And then their skin peeled away, curling up and falling off—until three
grinning skulls stared at Terri and me through empty eye sockets.
    “Come stay with us, cousins !” Louisa’s skull whispered. Her bony
fingers reached out toward us.
    “Join usssss!” Sam hissed. His fleshless jaw slid up and down. “We dug such
nice graves for you. So close to ours.”
    “Play with me,” Nat’s skull pleaded. “Stay and play with me. I don’t want you
to go. Ever !”
    The three ghosts moved toward us, their skeleton hands outstretched,
reaching, reaching for Terri and me.
    I gasped and stumbled back.
    I saw a frightened Harrison stagger back, too.
    And then the torch blew out.

 
 
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    The torchlight flickered and died.
    The heavy darkness made me gasp.
    I could feel bodies moving, scraping over the wet stone cave floor.
    I could hear the whispered pleas of the three ghosts.
    Closer. Closer.
    And then a cold hand gripped mine.
    I screamed before I heard her whispered voice: “Jerry—run!”
    Terri!
    Before I could catch my breath, my sister was pulling me through the
darkness.
    Into the rain. Onto the slippery rock ledge.
    “Run! Run!” Terri cried, her eyes wild, her cold hand still gripping mine.
    “Run! Run!”
    The word became a desperate chant.
    “Run! Run!”
    But as we struggled to lower ourselves down the rocks, the roar of thunder
drowned out Terri’s shouts.
    The ground shook.
    My legs nearly slid out from under me.
    I cried out when I realized the roar in my ears wasn’t thunder.
    Half-blinded by the rain, Terri and I spun around in time to see the rocks
topple from the top of the