The Crossroads

Judy and Zipper raced back into the mansion’s library.

Davy had disappeared again and so had Eberhart. But it seemed some other tormented spirit was in the room with them because Judy heard ghostly moaning from somewhere up near the ceiling.

Zipper ran over to the rolling ladder attached to the towering bookcases.

“Hello?” Judy called out. She saw the faint outline of a man standing near the top of the ladder. “Who are you?”

The man held a sputtering candle. He turned slowly and looked down.

Judy recognized the man because she had seen his face in the old newspaper clippings: Julius Spratling. Gerda’s dead father. He was dressed in a dark blue business suit. There was an anguished look on his waxy face.

He blew out the candle and something fluttered through the air: a glowing square of soft light, a phantom sheet of paper. It drifted down lazily like a tumbling leaf. When it finally hit the library floor, it bounced up half an inch and slid underneath one of the massive bookcases.

Judy hurried over to where the thin rectangle of light had disappeared. She bent down and saw an ancient binder. It was covered by almost an inch of dust.

Was it the report from the safe-deposit box?

She reached in. Grabbed the slender book. Read its cover.

The Greyhound Bus Incident

A Search for Justice

Yes! It was the same report. Only this wasn’t a carbon copy. This had to be the original Grandpa Jennings had presented to Julius Spratling on the night he committed suicide. The pages were yellowed. The plastic spine had faded. It had, apparently, been hidden under the bookcase for the past twenty-five years.

Judy slowly opened the booklet and the pages began to flick forward—all by themselves! The flipping paper came to a sudden stop when it reached a page where certain words, down near the bottom, seemed to glow with an eerie light.

Mr. Eberhart loved to flirt with thefactory girls, often inviting them to join him for makeout sessions in anabandoned machine shop behind the factory.

The machine shop. Behind the factory.

That’s where they took Zack!

“Come on, Zipper. We have to hurry!”

Judy looked up to thank Mr. Spratling.

She saw his ghostly body swinging at the noosed end of a tasseled rope.

Judy and Zipper raced out of the library and were blinded by a brilliant white light.

“Davy?”

Clint Eberhart stumbled into the dusty beam. “That hillbilly beaned me with his slingshot!”

While Eberhart rubbed his ear, Judy and Zipper took off.

They both knew the way to the front door because they had been up and down this corridor all night long. Now they needed to outrun the limping hellion and go rescue Zack at the abandoned Spratling Clockworks Factory.

But how are you going to get there?

The factory was a good fifteen-minute drive from Spratling Manor.

You don’t have a car. Remember? You came over here with Sheriff Hargrove.

“You think you can run away, dolly?”

Eberhart was gaining on them.

Judy would ponder her transportation problems later. Right now she needed to run. She followed Zipper around a corner and saw moonlight leaking in around the front doorjamb. If they could make it outside, they might have a chance.

“Thought I’d have to settle for killing your boy. Now I get to kill you and his dog, too!”

“Faster, Zipper!” They raced to the front door, yanked it open, and then slammed it shut behind them. Judy couldn’t tell who was panting louder: her or the dog.

“Hey there.”

She turned around. Billy O’Claire was standing on the porch. He looked paler than usual.

“That toilet upstairs still giving you trouble?”

“N-no,” Judy stammered, and tried not to stare at the ghost she had actually known when he was alive. “Our house burned down.”

“Well, that’s one way to fix your plumbing problems. Oh, I’m supposed to tell you to borrow the old lady’s car. It’s around back. A Caddy. The keys are in the ignition.”

“Noooo!” It was Eberhart, wailing on the other side of the front door.

“You better hurry before my grandfather figures out he can walk through walls.”

“Thanks,” said Judy.

“Hey, your son’s taking care of my son. I figure it’s the least I can do.”

Judy and Zipper took off running and saw the Cadillac parked in the side driveway.

Zipper jumped through the open window and bounded over to the passenger seat, where he yapped at Judy to hurry up and drive! She pulled open the heavy door, climbed behind the steering wheel, and twisted the ignition. The antique auto, meticulously maintained by the chauffeur for five decades, started right up.

“Hang on,” Judy said. She slipped the car into gear and pointed it toward the winding driveway that would lead them down to the front gates. Zipper stuck his head out the window and barked goodbye to Billy O’Claire as the plumber faded into the night.

Judy pressed down on the gas pedal.

Zipper cocked an ear.

Then Judy heard it, too: another car, revving its engine.

She checked the rearview mirror and saw Clint Eberhart behind the wheel of a 1958 Thunderbird convertible.

Great, she thought. The car’s a ghost, too!