Adam felt himself stumble. No, it was more as if he’d tripped and fallen off a cliff. An invisible precipice at the edge of the world. The earth disappeared beneath his feet; the sky ceased to exist. He fell without moving. He continued to grip Sally’s hand, although she could have been a million light-years away for all he could see of her. In fact, he could see nothing, not even the dark storm that lifted him up as swiftly as it threw him down. Dropping him in another time, in another dimension.
11
The tombstone stood before them. In a dark and dreary place.
“We’ve been turned around,” Sally whispered, standing beside Adam, still holding his hand.
“We’ve been more than turned around,” Adam whispered back.
He was right—boy, was he right. The sky was not completely dark, but washed by a faint red glow. It was as if the haunting light of Ann Templeton’s tower had spread from horizon to horizon. The trees were now totally bare, sharp sticks waiting to scratch whoever walked by. All around them the tombstones were toppled and broken, covered with spiderwebs and dust. Many had fallen, it seemed, because the bodies they marked had dug themselves out from under the ground. Adam shuddered as he saw how many broken and splintered coffins were scattered about the cemetery. In the distance, in the direction of the castle, they heard screams, the cries of the doomed.
“We have to get out of here!” Sally cried. “Let’s go back through the tombstone.”
“What about Watch?” Adam asked.
“If he’s here, it’s probably too late for him.” They heard another scream and Sally jerked Adam’s hand. “Quick, let’s go! Before something dead eats us!”
Once more they approached the tombstone walking backward. But this time they just bumped up against the marble. It was solid, no longer a portal into another dimension. They were trapped.
“What’s wrong?” Sally cried.
“It’s not working,” Adam said.
“I know that, but why isn’t it working?”
“I don’t know. I just got here from Kansas City, remember.” Another cry sounded from the direction of the castle. Off to their left, in the corner of the cemetery, something stirred beneath the ground, scattering dirt and dead leaves.
It could have been another corpse clawing its way to the surface. They didn’t wait to find out.
“Let’s get out of here!” Sally cried.
They ran for the entrance, which was now only a heap of rusted metal. Exiting the cemetery, they caught sight of the sea, far below. Only it no longer looked as if it were filled with water. The ocean glowed an eerie green, like liquid that had gushed from radioactive mines. A mysterious fog hung over it, whirling in tiny cyclones. Even from a distance Adam believed he saw shapes moving beneath the surface. Hungry aquatic creatures. He and Sally paused to catch their breaths.
“This is worse than The Twilight Zone” he muttered.
“I want to go to my house,” Sally said.
“Do we really want to go there?” Adam wondered aloud. “What will we find?”
Sally nodded in understanding. “Maybe we’ll find this creepy dimension’s counterpart of ourselves.”
It was a terrifying idea. “Do you think it’s possible?”
“I think anything is possible here,” Sally said grimly. Another scream echoed from the direction of the castle. It sounded as if some poor soul had just been dropped in a vat of boiling water. Sally squeezed Adam’s hand and continued,
“But I had rather be there than here.”
“I agree,” Adam said.
So they headed for their houses, but it was like no walk through the gentle streets of the real Spooksville. In fact, they didn’t even use the sidewalks. Instead, they darted from bush to bush, tree to tree, in case they’d be seen. Yet they saw no one, at least not clearly. But around every corner they thought they caught a glimpse of someone fleeing, or else the shadow of something following them.
“This place looks as if it’s been through a war,” Sally whispered.
Adam nodded. “A war with the forces of evil.”
The houses were in ruins. Many had been burned to the ground. Smoke drifted up from the ashes, mingling with the fog that was moving in from the direction of the glowing green sea. Most of the houses, like the tombstones in the cemetery, were covered with dust and spiderwebs.
What had driven the people away? Adam wondered. What had taken the place of the people? Black shapes moved against the dull red sky; bats the size of horses screeched wickedly as they wheeled in search of living food. Holding on to each other, Sally and Adam hurried home.
They went to Sally’s house first, which may have been a mistake. It was scarcely there. A large tree that she said didn’t even exist in the real world had fallen across the roof and crushed the house flat. Searching through the ruins, they couldn’t find any sign of her parents.
“Maybe they got away,” she said.
“Maybe you wouldn’t have even recognized them,” Adam said.
Sally shivered. “Do you still want to go to your house?”
“I don’t know what else to do. We may be trapped here forever.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true.”
Sally was gloomy. “A lot of sad things are true.”
12
Adam’s house was still standing. He knocked on the door before entering. No one answered. Fog crept around them, glowing reddish orange like the sky. In this place Halloween could be a year-round holiday. Adam put his ear to the door, listening for talking vampires, for walking zombies.