At first, I thought it was a mannequin or clothing dummy.
But then he moved.
Captured in the light, he turned slowly. A boy with long, black hair. He raised a bony hand and pointed at me with a slender finger.
“Ohhh,” I whispered. The flashlight started to slip from my hand. And as the light swerved, I saw another figure. A girl standing stiffly beside him. She
wore a dark T-shirt over baggy jeans. Her blond hair spiked out around her face.
A wave of panic made my legs tremble. I grasped the flashlight tightly. “Who—who are you?” I choked out.
My hand shook. In the quivering light, I saw another boy, short and chubby with his hands raised to his cheeks. And another boy, pointing another
bony finger at me.
“Peter . . . Peter…” they chanted. The four of them. The four strange intruders in my basement.
“Who are you? What are you doing down here?” I screamed.
They moved forward. Huddled side by side, they took a step toward me. My light trembled over their faces. Their glowing, shimmering faces.
“No—!” I cried out as I saw why they shimmered so eerily.
Their skin… their hands and arms… their faces… covered by a thick goo. A shimmering, clear slime. Like a clear, wet gelatin.
Their hair glowed in the thick layer of slime. It stretched over their wide-open eyes. Over their entire heads. They were trapped inside it.
And as they opened their mouths to whisper my brother’s name, the gelatin bubbled, then snapped back tight.
“Peter . . . Peter…”
Trapped inside their clear cocoons, they moved in unison, slowly like robots—like zombies—they took another step toward me.
“This isn’t happening,” I murmured out loud.
Their eyes stared coldly at me through the thick, wet layer of jelly.
I spun away. Started to run to the stairs.
But another figure caught my eye. Another dark figure, standing behind the four terrifying kids. Hunched over as if in pain. Standing so still…
My whole body shuddered in terror. The four shimmering kids took another slow step toward me. I raised the light to the boy hunched behind them. It
washed over his pale face, his wide, staring eyes, his mouth open in a silent cry.
And I screamed in horror.
“PETER!”