Free The Howler by R. L. Stine Page B

Their faces melted completely away, revealing open-jawed, toothless skulls.
    They floated out of their clothes.
    I gasped.
    No skin on their bodies. No skin at all.
    Their bones rattled as they moved, clattering and grinding as bone scraped against bone.
    And as they neared, they tossed back their skulls. Another hideous, high wail escaped their toothless mouths.
    “ EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! ”
    Not a living sound. The shriek of the dead. Filledwith pain and anger. An ancient cry finally finding its voice.
    “ EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! ”
    Shrieking, skull tossed back, bones clattering, the father leaped onto Justin.
    The ghost girl floated over Vanessa. Vanessa swung her fists. But she couldn’t keep the ghost girl away.
    Scott and I struggled, tossed and squirmed. Bent together. Our hands burning. Stuck. No escape.
    No escape…
    The mother and the son lowered their shoulder bones, raised their bony arms, and attacked.
    I opened my mouth to scream as the boy lowered his head and clamped his toothless jaw down on my shoulder.
    Squirming, twisting, desperate to free my hand, I shut my eyes and waited for the pain to rack my body.
    Waited…
    Waited…
    No pain. I opened my eyes. The boy’s jaw had slid right through me!
    He raised a bony hand. Tightened it into a fist. And drove his fist into my stomach.
    But I felt nothing. His hand shot through me and came out the other side.
    I turned to Vanessa, who jumped right through the skeletal ghost girl.
    Justin struggled with the father, ducking, dodging. Justin’s head shot through the father’s chest. “I—I can’t feel him!” Justin cried.
    “They can’t touch us!” Vanessa shouted. “They can’t hurt us!”
    “ EEEEEEEEEEEEE! ” The ghosts shrieked out their unhappiness, their fury.
    “ We can hurt you ,” the boy rasped, pointing his bony finger at Vanessa. “ We will have plenty of time for that .”
    “ Trapped… ” the old woman repeated. She opened her toothless, rotted mouth and cackled. An ugly, dry coughing sound. “Trapped.”
    “You’ll never leave the house!” the ghost father cried.
    “Our house! Our prison!” the mother shrieked. “Now it will be yours!”

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    Shrieking and cackling, the ghosts faded away.
    The sudden silence was almost as frightening as their ugly cries. My eyes darted around the kitchen. The ghosts had vanished—but for how long?
    “Hey!” I let out a startled cry as I realized my hand was free.
    Scott stood up too, holding his hand, shaking it. His hand was purple and swollen. “It…came off the knob!”
    I gazed down at my hand, tenderly squeezing it, moving the fingers until the ache started to fade. “Maybe when the ghosts left, they freed us.”
    “I don’t care!” Scott cried. “Let’s go!” He tried the door again. “It still won’t open!”
    “Now what?” Vanessa demanded.
    “We can go out a window,” Scott said. “The den window is easy.”
    “Yes!” I cried, pumping my fist in the air.
    We started running toward the den. But I stopped in the living room.
    My eye caught something on the table beside the couch. “The phone!” I shouted.
    I flew across the room. “We can call for help. Someone can come and get us out of here!”
    “Hurry—please!” Vanessa begged.
    “Yes!” I lifted the phone—and punched in 911.

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    I pushed the emergency number, then pressed the phone to my ear and listened.
    Silence for a second or two. And then…
    “Hahahahahaha!” A high, shrill cackling laugh, tinny and distant-sounding.
    I jerked the phone from my ear. But the ugly laughter continued to pour out of it.
    With an angry grunt, I tossed the phone to the floor. “We can’t call out,” I told my friends. I could still hear the tinny laughter rising from the phone.
    “Let’s just get out of here!” Justin cried. “Why are we standing around?”
    He took off running, into the den. We followed close behind.
    Behind the couch, the den window looked out on the side of the house. Justin leaned over