CHAPTER 6 : A Ghostly Telephone Call
EVEN WITH HIS longer legs, Pete had difficulty keeping
up with his racing partner. Then his heart gave an
extra leap. He heard footsteps right behind them!
“Somebody――” he gasped.“Somebody ...
chasing ... us”
Jupiter shook his head.
“Just ... echoes ... off ... the wall,” he panted.
To Pete the pursuing footsteps had an eerie quality
that didn’t sound like an echo―and didn’t sound like
footsteps made by anything human, either. But at that
moment he and Jupiter left the wall behind, and the
footsteps abruptly stopped chasing them. Apparently
Jupe was right again. Just more echoes.
But it wasn’t any echo that had caused the
overwhelming feeling of terror which had gripped
Pete back in the big round hall of Terror Castle. He
knew that. He couldn’t have kept from running for a
thousand dollars.
They were slowing down now to get round the big
boulders that narrowed the road to a footpath. But
still they kept on running. It just seemed like a good
idea.
They rounded a bend in the road, and the dark,
sinister building was no longer visible. Far down in
the valley, the lights of Los Angeles twinkled. And
there, parked a hundred yards down the road, was the
car with Worthington, the English chauffeur, waiting
at the wheel.
Pete and Jupiter had slowed down to a dogtrot
when unexpectedly, from far behind them, came a
shrill scream. It was a curious, piercing scream, with a
gurgling, bubbling quality to it as if whoever was
screaming had just―but Pete didn’t care to think
about what might have made the scream sound so
funny.
They reached the big, waiting Rolls-Royce, its
golden door handles and metal parts gleaming in the
starlight. Somebody flung the door open, and Pete fell
into the rear, where Bob was waiting for them. Bob
pulled Pete up into the seat as Jupiter piled in behind
him.
“Worthington!” Jupiter shouted.“Take us back
home.”
“Very good, Master Jones,” the tall, dignified
chauffeur said, and the big car purred into life. It
began to sweep down the curves towards the valley
below, faster and faster.
“What happened?” Bob asked as, puffing, the other
two fell back on to the leather-cushioned seat.“What
was that scream?”
“I don’t know,” Jupiter said.
“I don’t want to know.” Pete amended the
statement.“And if anybody else knows, I hope he
doesn’t tell me.”
“But what happened?” Bob asked.“Did you see
the Blue Phantom?”
Jupiter shook his head.
“We didn’t see anything. But just the same
something scared us silly.”
“Correction,” Pete declared.“We were already
silly. Something just scared us sillier.”
“Then the castle really is haunted?” Bob asked
eagerly.“All those stories are true?”
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s headquarters for the
Union of Ghosts, Ghouls, and Werewolves of
America,” Pete declared, breathing easier now as the
car took them ever farther from the spot.“It’s one
place we’re never going to go again, are we?”
He turned to Jupiter, who was sitting back,
pinching his lower lip between thumb and forefinger,
always a sign he was deep in thought.
“We aren’t ever going back, are we?” Pete repeated
hopefully. But Jupiter Jones did not seem to hear him.
He looked out the window of the racing car and
continued to pinch his lip without answering.
When the car finally reached The Jones Salvage
Yard, Jupiter thanked Worthington and said he would
phone next time he needed transport.
“Better luck next time, Master Jones,” the
chauffeur said.“I must say I am enjoying this
assignment. It’s a change from driving for fat bankers
and rich old ladies.”
Then he drove off, and Jupiter led his partners into
the junk yard. His Uncle Titus and Aunt Mathilda
were inside their little house, which adjoined the yard.
The boys could see them through the open window,
watching television.
“It’s still early,” Jupiter said.“We returned from
our expedition sooner than I had planned.”
“But not half soon enough to suit me,” Pete told
him. He was still somewhat pale. Jupiter was pale,
too. But the stocky boy could be very stubborn at
times, and admitting that he was scared was one of the
things he was most stubborn about.
Now he said,“I hope you recorded that scream on
the tape recorder. If so, we can listen to it and attempt
to identify it.”
“You hope I recorded the scream!” Pete yelled.“I
was running. not recording. Or maybe you didn’t
notice?”
“My instructions were to record all unusual
sounds,” Jupiter said.“However, under the
circumstances, I suppose you can’t be blamed.”
Jupiter led them through “Easy Three”, their code
name for the easiest entrance to Headquarters. It was
a big oak door, still in its frame, which seemed to be
leaning against a pile of granite blocks from a
demolished building.
Jupiter walked over and fished a big, rusty iron key
out of a box of junk, where no one would have given
it a second look. He unlocked the oak door, pulled it
open, and they ducked in.
Now they were in an old iron boiler that bad come
from some monster steam engine. They walked
through it, slightly stooped, and at the other end
crawled through a round door directly into
Headquarters. Jupiter turned on the light and sat
down behind the desk.
“Now,” he said,“we must evaluate what happened.
Pete, what made you run from Terror Castle
tonight?”
“Nothing made me run,” Pete told him.“I ran
because I wanted to.”
“I will phrase the question differently. What made
you want to run?”
“Well,” Pete said,“there in Echo Hall, I first began
to feel uneasy. Just uneasy. After a little while, I was
feeling extremely nervous. All of a sudden the
extreme nervousness became sheer terror, and then I
wanted to run.”
“Mmm.” Jupiter pinched his lower lip.“Your
experience was exactly the same as mine. First
uneasiness. Then extreme nervousness. Then sheer
All they could hear was a curious humming.
terror. And yet, what really happened? We heard
some echoes―we felt a cold draught――”
“An ice-cold draught!” Pete corrected him.“And
what about the picture that looked at me with a living
eye?”
“Probably only imagination,” Jupiter told him.
“We actually saw and heard nothing to frighten us.
Yet we felt frightened. The question is, why?”
“What do you mean, why?” Pete asked.“Any old
deserted house is kind of frightening, and that place is
so scary it would frighten spooks!”
“Perhaps that is the answer,” Jupiter agreed.“We
must visit Terror Castle again and――”
And then the telephone rang.
They stared at it. The telephone had never rung
before. Jupiter had had it installed less than a week
ago when they had definitely decided they would start
some kind of business. They planned to pay the
charges from the money they made repairing broken
items for Mr. Jones. It was listed in Jupiter’s name,
but of course the listing hadn’t been put in the
telephone book yet. So far, no one else knew they had
it. Yet here it was ringing!
It rang again. Pete gulped.“Well, answer it,” he
said.
“I will.” Jupiter picked it up.“Hello?” he said into
the phone.“Hello?”
He held the phone close to a microphone and
speaker he had assembled from parts of an old radio.
This made it possible for them all to hear what was
said. But all they could hear was a curious humming,
far off.
“Hello!” he said once more. But there was still no
answer, so finally he hung up.
“Probably a wrong number,” he stated.“As I was
saying――”
The phone rang again.
They stared at it. Jupiter reached for it as if
someone was holding on to his arm for dear life.
“Huh-hello?” he said.
They heard the strange humming again, sounding
far off and lonesome. Then they heard a voice that
seemed to be gargling, as if the speaker hadn’t talked
in years but was trying hard to say something.
“Stay――” the voice said. Then, as if it were a
great effort, as if it were the most tremendous effort
imaginable, the voice got out another word.
“——away,” it said.“Stay ... away.”
Then it died out in a long gasp, and again there was
just a weird humming noise.
“Stay away from what?” Jupiter asked the
telephone.
But the telephone didn’t answer. It just went on
humming.
He hung up. For a long moment no one said
anything. Then Pete stood up.
“I’ve got to get home,” he said.“I just remembered
something I have to attend to.”
“Me, too.” Bob hopped up.“I’ll go with you.”
“Possibly Aunt Mathulda would like me to do some
errands,” Jupiter said, and he got up, too. They
practically fell over one another in their eagerness to
get out of Headquarters.
The voice on the phone hadn’t finished the sentence
But they didn’t have any trouble figuring what he―or
it, or whatever it was―had been trying to tell them.
Stay away from Terror Castle!
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