Chapter One
The horror started because of a kiss.
And because my girlfriend and I were somewhere we weren't supposed to be.
Jamie and I were the first Night People, although we didn't call ourselves that until much later. Soon, other kids found out about what we were doing and decided to try it too.
But in those early days, we had the whole night to ourselves -- like it was our world! Still and quiet, and the streets all empty and the houses dark, we could go anywhere we wanted and do anything we felt like.
How cool is that?
Jamie and I started the whole thing. With mountains of homework and senior year crunch, we never had time to see each other.
So one October night we waited for our parents to go to sleep. A little after midnight, we sneaked out of our houses and met at the construction site on Fear Street.
The old Fear Mansion was about to be torn down. All the old mansions for blocks had been knocked down to make way for the shopping center.
Fear Street Acres.
They talked about it on TV a lot. How in the past everyone in Shadyside had been scared to come to this neighborhood. How the Fear family had left some kind of evil curse on Fear Street.
But now, with Fear Street Acres, it was all supposed to change. Now the neighborhood would be jammed with shoppers and restaurants and people having fun.
The Fear Mansion was already a burned-out wreck. The brick walls were sooty and black as if a huge shadow clung to the house.
Inside, the floorboards cracked and creaked under our feet. Rats and field mice scrabbled over the floors. Insects built huge nests in the rotting walls. And the wind whistled through the broken windows.
Over a hundred years ago, there had been a terrible fire in the house. The burned-out shell of the building had stood at the end of Fear Street ever since. A lot of people were afraid to go inside it -- afraid of the curse, and of the Fear family's evil magic.
But to us, it was just a cool place to meet and hang out. Our own world. Who would look for us there?
That first night, I remember the full moon. Actually, I remember everything about that night. The first night of the Night People.
Jamie and I slipped into one of the abandoned houses. We found a ratty old couch to sit on, and Jamie climbed on my lap. We hardly said a word. We held each other as if we never wanted to let go. Hidden in the deep darkness, we felt safe and protected and alone.
Jamie's lipstick tasted orangy. She had her eyes shut tight as we kissed. I still remember how we started breathing so hard, and stopped, and let go of each other for a while.
We started sneaking out nearly every night.
Most nights we crept into the old Fear Mansion, and we stayed there together later and later. Around four or five in the morning, we'd sneak back to our homes and try to catch a few hours' sleep.
Some nights we explored the old house. We looked for ghosts. We looked for things that the Fears might have left. But the rooms were empty and charred and sad.
Spiders had filled the main kitchen with curtains of webs. The walls of the library were burned and peeling. Rotting bookshelves had collapsed. Our shoes slid through thick carpets of dust.
One wing of the mansion had withstood the fire. One crystal chandelier still hung in what was once the gigantic ballroom. One night Jamie and I pretended to waltz, laughing and twirling down the still-shiny floor of the enormous room.
"Wow. Lewis, just think of the parties the Fear family had here," Jamie said. "We're dancing with ghosts."
Yes, as I said, Jamie really believes in ghosts and the spirit world. Ever since her cousin Cindy died last year, Jamie has been totally obsessed.
Cindy had some kind of horrible blood disease, and she knew she wasn't going to make it. A week before she died, Jamie and I visited her in the hospital.
"I'll send you a sign," Cindy said. She had tubes in both arms and an oxygen tube in her nose. She could only whisper.
"I'll send you a sign," she said. "I'll send you a signal from the other side. I promise."
Ever since, Jamie read every book she can find about ghosts and the supernatural. She and her two friends, Christa and Elena, are all really into the ghost world. It's almost like a club. They're waiting for the signal from Cindy. Well, not just waiting. They talk about the signal and look for it everywhere.
I know Jamie liked meeting me in the Fear Mansion because she thought there were ghosts in there. She was dying to see a ghost, or hear one, or see some sign that they existed.
That's not why I sneaked out of my house every night. I just wanted to be with Jamie. To have our own secret world.
But, of course, our friends found out about what we were doing. And before long, Jamie and I weren't the only Night People.
Christa and Elena started sneaking out of their houses too. And two friends of mine, Justin Schmidt and Raymond Kresge, and some guys I didn't know too well.
And then a bunch of Juniors started showing up. I remember Nate Garvin was one of the first. And then his friend Bart Sharkman -- the guy everyone calls Shark. And Candy Shutt. Candy was still going with Shark then. They were totally into each other. They were always going off by themselves into one of the back rooms. Some other eleventh-grade kids came out too.
Most of us would meet after midnight at the Fear Mansion. Then we'd split up and wander off in different directions.
This was before the Nights bar opened. Nights didn't open until the next fall.
We didn't care where we met. It was just so exciting to be out all night and no one knowing about it. It was more than exciting. There was a special thrill having this secret from our parents and everyone.
Sometimes four or five of us would walk into town and stare into the dark store windows. Some nights we sneaked into the gym at the high school. We cranked up a boombox till the bleachers shook. Some nights we just hung out in the parking lot.
Shark had spray cans of that stringy stuff, and some nights he'd spray some windows or doors. He liked filling mailboxes with the stringy stuff.
Once we picked up a dog house and moved it to another yard. I don't know why we thought that was such a riot. But we did. And one night we found a dead raccoon in the road and we hung it on someone's clothes line. Dumb, huh? But kinda funny.
We never did any real damage. We didn't want to get into trouble. We didn't want to risk ruining this perfect, secret world we had.
And then came the night we found the hidden room.
There was a big crowd that night. Some of Nate and Shark's friends showed up. A girl named Ada and a couple of guys I didn't really know -- Aaron and Galen Somebody.
We were all in the ballroom of the Fear Mansion. Shark disappeared into a back room with Candy Shutt. Christa and Elena hung out with Jamie and me for a while, but they went home early.
I took Jamie's arm and whispered to her. "It's too crowded tonight. Let's take a walk or something."
Jamie nodded okay.
Across the room I saw my two buddies, Justin and Raymond. They were having a friendly shoving match. Just goofing around. Justin stumbled back, laughing. I think he was trashed. He and Raymond had each brought a six-pack.
Raymond gave Justin another shove. Justin's back slammed into the wall. I heard a crash. The wall was concrete or stone. But it totally crumbled.
Justin let out a cry as the wall fell in and he crashed right through it.
"Whoa!" Raymond dropped to his knees, laughing. He dropped his can of Budweiser, and the beer splashed over the floor.
"Hey -- help me!" Justin shouted. His voice was muffled by the broken wall.
I ran across the room. Jamie was right behind me. And a bunch of other kids. I bent down to see if I could pull Justin out of the wall. He was on his back, giggling and kicking his legs.
"Justin, do you want help or not?" I asked.
He cut off his laugh. "Lewis, you won't believe this," he said. "Dude, you won't believe this!"
And that's how we discovered the hidden room. We all followed Justin through the hole in the wall. Nate Garvin had a halogen flashlight, so we could see really well.
I squeezed through the hole and helped pull Jamie in behind me. I guess the first thing I noticed was that the room had no door. Maybe there was a trap door or something, but I couldn't find one. No door. No window.
There was no way to get into the room!
"Check this out!" Nate cried, sweeping his light over the shelves on the walls. I saw shelves going up to the ceiling, stacked high with all kinds of weird stuff.
Stacks of black candles. Jars of colored powders. Incense sticks. Animal bones. Old books and piles and piles of papers and magazines and journals. Glittery jewelry. Silver trophies and medals. A black cloak and hooded coats and long dresses hung in an alcove beside the shelves.
We all started pulling things off the shelves and pawing through drawers like it was some kind of toy store at Christmastime. Jamie tried on a fur coat that came down to her ankles. "Feel it," she kept insisting. "Lewis, feel it." I ran my hand over the dark fur. Very soft and silky.
"Whoa -- dude!" Shark showed off a tiny silver pistol he'd found. Candy found a jewelry box and started pulling out long, glittery earrings.
I found some treasures too. For one thing, a stack of old sheet music. I flipped through the pile quickly, squinting in the shifting light. Some of the songs dated back to 1900. I knew they were worth big-time bucks. And I found a two-volume coin collection that had to be worth money too.
I decided I'd hide the stuff in my room for a while, then maybe sell it on eBay.
Jamie hung the fur coat back up and went to check out the jewelry box. I saw her slip a gold bracelet on her wrist. Some of the eleventh-grade girls had found another jewelry box and were excitedly clawing through it.
"It isn't even my birthday!" Shark cried. And everyone laughed. He picked up a big, silver trophy cup. "I want to thank everyone who made this possible!" he cr...
