The Hanging Hill

67

Zack followed the curly-haired lady through the storage area under the stage, down the hallway on the left, through an open double door, and into a dimly lit passageway.

“Excuse me?” he cried out. “What are you doing here? Did you follow me? Why aren’t you back in North Chester?”

Doll Face stopped moving forward. Drifted in place. Her clothes—a simple robe of some sort—and her tangle of coiled hair bobbed up and down as if she were underwater.

“Beware Pandemonium,” the woman whispered, without turning around.

Her, too?

Zack felt fear crawl across his skin, then drop a bucket of ice down his spine. The lady’s voice sounded strangely familiar. Did Zack know her? Doubtful. He didn’t know many dead people, especially ones who hung around with convicted killers from 1959.

The curly-haired woman drifted down another passageway.

“Were you the ghost Judy saw going out of my room? Why’d you follow us here? Did you knock that picture frame over on purpose?”

The woman froze again.

Zack knew that if she had knocked over the picture frame, she must’ve been really mad or really sad, because that was the only way ghosts could make physical objects move.

The woman resumed her forward drift.

Doll Face was one weird ghost. Unlike chatty old Bartholomew Buckingham or Justus Willowmeier III, she hardly said a word—just “Beware Pandemonium,” and everybody seemed to be saying that lately.

Also, her clothes didn’t seem very old. Her robe was the soft gray of dove wings but looked kind of modern, so whoever she was, or had been, she hadn’t been dead very long. Either that, or heaven had shopping malls.

They made their way past some dusty scenery pieces.

Doll Face turned left, walked under a brick archway.

Zack followed, wondering why Mad Dog called her that, because he hadn’t even seen her face yet.

There seemed to be a golden halo of light rimming her body now, which was a good thing—otherwise the hallway would be totally dark. The overhead light sockets were bulbless. Apparently, they were moving into a section of the basement where nobody ventured—not even the cranky janitor.

Suddenly, Doll Face ducked down and stepped over a low cinder block wall, through a very narrow opening that led into some sort of dank crawl space.

The air here was damp, thick with the scent of mildew. The floor was dirt, maybe mud. Zack, who wasn’t all that tall, had to walk hunched over to avoid scraping his head against the rough beams in the ceiling.

Doll Face leaned forward and floated.

“Are we still under the theater?” Zack asked. “I think I hear the river. Do you smell it?”

No answer.

Maybe ghosts couldn’t smell.

Zack had a funny feeling he had been led down here for a reason, and maybe not a particularly nice one. Maybe this ghost was the demon sent to slay the demon slayer.

“You know what? I think it’s time I headed back upstairs. My mom’s probably wondering where I am.”

Once more, Doll Face froze.

This time, however, she slowly raised her right arm and pointed at something on the ground directly in front of her.

Zack moved forward. The ghost’s stiff finger seemed to glow and illuminated a shadowy rectangle near her feet.

A steamer trunk.

An old-fashioned footlocker about four feet long with riveted ribbons along all its edges. Two hinged hasps flanked a lock that was already flipped up and open.

Aha! Doll Face had switched teams and was now working with Bartholomew Buckingham, whose spies had reported seeing two burly hooligans hiding a theatrical trunk.

Zack read what was stenciled in faded paint above the lock clasp: Professor Nicholas Nicodemus.

Suddenly, the crawl space went dark.

Doll Face had disappeared, taking her glowing light with her.