Free Nightmare Hour by R. L. Stine Page A

the basement looked normal again. Everything okay. No dead kids. No broken beam or fallen ceiling.
    â€œI know why we are seeing these kids,” I said out loud, trying to work things out. “A hundred years ago these kids all died in this basement. They were killed here, crushed to death….”
    I stared at the mask, crumpled on the floor. Then I ran upstairs, my legs as shaky as Jell-O.
    Mom and Dad had gone shopping. I didn’t feel likebeing alone. I couldn’t be alone.
    I had to call Bill and tell him. But as I picked up the phone, the doorbell rang.
    I hurried down the steps to the front door, pulled it open--and screamed. The man from the past. The man hiding in the basement, holding the wrench, spying on those poor kids.
    The man from a hundred years ago…
    He was standing on my front stoop!
    Â 
    â€œSorry I’m so late,” he said, eyeing me through the storm door.
    â€œHuh? Late? N-no…” I stammered. “No…it c-can’t be….”
    He scratched a tuft of white hair with his free hand. “Is your dad home? I’m Calvin Reimer. He called me about checking out the furnace. But I got tied up till now.”
    What is happening? I asked myself. I saw him through the mask, a hundred years ago. But he looks exactly the same!
    Is he a ghost?
    â€œCan I come in?” he asked. He lifted a large toolbox off the stoop. “I’m here to fix the furnace.”
    I pictured him again, hiding back there, holding the wrench.
    I can’t let him in, I thought. He’s the same man I saw through the mask!
    â€œMy parents aren’t home,” I told him.
    He ignored me and pulled open the storm door. He pushed past me into the living room. “That’s no problem,”he said. “I know the way.” He started to the basement stairs.
    My heart pounding, I followed him. “Were you ever here a long time ago?” My voice shook.
    He chuckled. “You got that right, son. Believe it or not, I’ve been taking care of this house for nearly fifty years.”
    My brain was spinning. I followed him down to the basement. He opened the furnace and got right to work.
    I stood watching him, hands shoved deep in my pockets, trying to stay calm, trying to figure this out. I kept picturing those poor kids crushed under the falling ceiling.
    â€œMr. Reimer, did anything …terrible ever happen down here?” I asked, my voice cracking.
    He gazed at me through his thick glasses. “Everyone calls me Cal,” he said. “Why do you ask that?”
    I shrugged and tried to sound casual. “Just wondered.”
    Cal bit his bottom lip. “As a matter of fact there was a terrible tragedy down in this basement, nearly fifty years ago. But how old are you? Eleven? Twelve? I don’t think you want to hear about it.”
    â€œYes!” I cried, losing my cool. “Please! I do want to hear.”
    He scratched a tuft of white hair with the blade of his screwdriver. “Well, it was a bitter winter day. The Anderson family--that’s who lived here then--still had an old-fashioned coal-burning furnace.”
    He sighed. “They moved out right after the tragedy. You see, Amelia, the little girl, wandered down here. No one knew how she got away from her nanny. But she wandered down here to the basement, and she must have been running or something. And she fell.”
    Cal stopped and squinted at me. “You sure you want to hear this?”
    I nodded. “Yes. Go on. Please.”
    He cleared his throat. “Well, to make a long story short, someone left the furnace doors open. Amelia fell in, fell right into the burning coal. She was burned up. Burned to her bones. Probably didn’t take long. No one heard her scream or anything. Later, all they found was her little charred skeleton.”
    Cal shook his head. “The Andersons moved out soon after. But some people think that Amelia’s ghost stayed. Some