The Black Heart Crypt

The first ghost cat Zack saw materialize was black and rippled with muscles—just like the Black Shuck dog.

It was also headless.

“Grizzmaldo!” gasped Aunt Ginny. “That’s our cousin Harriet’s kitty!”

Fiendishly angry at the Icklebys for what they had done to him on that long-ago Halloween night, Grizzmaldo swiped at the nine terrified ghosts with claws as long and as sharp as steak knives. He shrieked at the trembling demons through the gaping hole that used to be his throat.

Now the cemetery was swarming with hissing ghost cats. A dozen. Then two dozen. Then a hundred. Maybe two hundred. And all of them looked like they had been abused in life. Some had charred tail fur. Others limped. Several were missing eyes or ears or limbs.

The swarm of cats let loose a chorus of bawling caterwauling so deafening, Zack thought he was at a day care center where they had forgotten to feed all the babies.

And he remembered the cat cries he had heard when he and Zip chased the Black Shuck dog up Haddam Hill.

Zack figured that the headless cat, Grizzmaldo, had been biding his time—watching the Ickleby crypt, waiting for his chance to wreak revenge by mustering up his own phantom army of mistreated mousers.

As the undulating ocean of ruffled fur, mangled tails, and flared fangs prowled closer, the nine Ickleby fiends stood cowering at the door to their crypt.

“Sisters?” whispered Aunt Ginny. “Sage candles! Quickly, now!”

All three sisters lit smudge sticks and hurled them up over the writhing wall of ghost cats.

Three volleys of three flares.

Nine all together.

One for each immortal soul.

When the Ickleby ghosts froze, the sisters started to chant.

“There is nothing here for you now.…”