Free R. L. Stine_Mostly Ghostly 04 by Little Camp of Horrors

time.”
    “Phears!” Mr. Roland shouted, wrapping his arms around Nicky and Tara. “Haven't you done enough evil?”
    “Can't you leave our family alone?” Mrs. Roland demanded, her dark eyes flashing angrily.
    “You didn't leave
me
alone!” Phears screamed in a sudden rage. “You two locked my friends and me up in those pods. You said you were ridding the world of evil spirits.”
    Phears floated closer, close enough so that we could see the anger in his solid white eyes. “You call yourselves scientists,” he raged. “I call you
murderers
. You had no right to invade the tunnel between the living and the dead. No right to set up your lab to capture ghosts. No right to meddle in the spirit world.”
    “Your evil had to be stopped,” Mr. Roland said, holding on to Nicky and Tara.
    A cold grin crossed Phears' face. “But you
didn't
stop me. I escaped. And I helped to free all the other ghostly spirits you unjustly captured.”
    “Leave us alone!” Tara shouted. “Just go away and leave us alone!”
    Phears ignored her. “I locked the two of you in a life pod,” he continued. “I tried to hide the pod. I tossed it in your house. I always meant to come back and finish you off. Finish you. Yes, finish you.”
    He sighed. “But it took me all this time to get you all together.”
    “Run!” Tara screamed. She gave her mom and dad a shove. “Come on—run!”
    Phears tossed back his head in a cruel laugh. “You can't escape!” he bellowed. “I have you outnumbered!”
    Phears waved a hand over his head. I heard a rumbling sound. At first, I thought it was thunder far in the distance.
    A loud splash made me turn to the lake. A high wave crashed against the shore. The lake erupted in tall waves, smashing against each other.
    Another roar like thunder, much louder and closer.
    And then I turned to the tossing, crashing waters. And saw a scene of total horror!
    Curling on itself, snapping its jaws, a gray-green snake floated up from the waves. And then another, right beneath it.
    The snakes uncurled and raised their heads with a loud hiss.
    As I watched frozen in disbelief, snake after snake flew up from the lake. Their jaws snapped open and shut. Their hisses drowned out the crashing of the waves.
    A solid
wall
of twisting, hissing snakes, rising from beneath the water.
    The snakes rose higher and higher …. The hissing, wriggling wall reached to the sky.
    As the wall of snakes loomed over us, they began to crack apart. The hissing grew deafening, like an explosion that didn't end. I had to cover my ears.
    And then the hissing was replaced by the howl of ghosts. Black smoke poured out of the open snakes, poured out until it formed a black storm cloud over our heads.
    Behind the black cloud, the snake bodies fell back into the water. As they hit the surface, they didn't make a sound. Hundreds of snake bodies slid into the lake, silently, without a splash.
    And then the waves stopped crashing. The lake turned calm and flat again. No sign of the phantom snakes anywhere. The water lapped the shore gently, as if nothing had happened.
    And out of the thick black cloud of smoke came an army of Phears' ghosts.
    I trembled all over and my teeth started to chatter as I stared up at them. Shadowy men and women dressed in gray. Dull eyes and dead faces, blank and lifeless.
    They moved together like zombies—an army of the dead. They floated down from the black cloud with their hands at their sides, their bodies stiff, their eyes straight ahead.
    Phears waved his hands again. The ghosts all landed at the same time. They swept past me. Floated right through me.
    I could hear them jabbering to themselves. They murmured excitedly without moving their gray lips. They were excited about capturing Nicky and Tara and their parents.
    Another command from Phears, and the jabbering ghosts surrounded the Rolands. They formed a tight circle around them.
    I couldn't see them now. I stood helplessly watching the ghostly circle.
    And