The Haunting Hour: Chills in the Dead of Night by R.L. Stine.
Title: The Haunting Hour: Chills in the Dead of Night.
Author: R.L. Stine.
Artists: Joe Rivera, Vince Natale, Art Spiegelman, Charles Burns, John Jude Palencar, Greg Call, Roz Chast, Clay Patrick McBride, Patrick Arrasmith, and Bleu Turrell.
Genre: Fiction, children's lit, short stories, horror.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 2001.
Summary: A collection of 10 horror stories. In The Halloween Dance, unbeknownst to themselves, two boys are invited to a Halloween party by a band of ghouls, and the reason the honour is bestowed is even more terrifying. In The Bad Baby-Sitter, a couple of kids are thrilled when their new baby-sitter turns out to know magic that would help them get back at their annoying neighbours, but they soon regret it when things turn sinister and scary. In Revenge of the Snowman, a boy named Billy believes a person can be frozen in fear-and his belief is put to the test when he gets encased in snow to make a snowman as a joke, and plots a joke of his own. In How to Bargain with a Dragon, a boy named Ned is tasked with capturing the last free dragon for the Dragon Master, but when he comes face to face with the monster, the boy decides to make a bargain.. In The Mummy's Dream, a boy decides to play a prank on his friends while at the museum and wraps himself up in gauze and lays down in an empty sarcophagus, but is then horrified to wake up in Ancient Egypt as a prince on the dawn of his sacrifice. In Are We There Yet?, two siblings on a family cross-country trip suddenly wake up one morning in a dilapidated hotel with their parents nowhere in sight, and a terrifying ordeal before them. In Take Me With You, Amber's father finds an old trunk in an antique store and insists she take it with them on their upcoming cruise, but she quickly realizes the trunk is inhabited by a spirit with some demands of her own. In My Imaginary Friend, David ends up in more and more dangerous situations when his friend Shawn keeps listening to his imaginary friend, Travis, but not everything is quite what it seems with this trio. In Losers, two boys who spend the county fair bullying others and making fun get a harsh lesson when they themselves are suddenly turned into prized vegetables and judged. In Can You Draw Me?, a young aspiring artist, Dylan, is thrilled when his teacher sends him a set of his old brushes, but things get sinister when the brushes begin acting of their own accord, forcing Dylan to draw terrible scenes.
My rating: 7.5/10.
My review:
♥ The hissing grew louder. It seemed to spread over the ground. And then slender wisps of cloud floated up. Like wriggling snakes, the pale-gray wisps of steam climbed up between the tilted gravestones. The tiny clouds floated low over the ground, then lifted into the air.
“No!” I let out a cry when I saw the first bony hand poke up from the ground.
I saw the fingers unfurl like spider legs. And then the palm of the hand slapped the hard dirt. Then another hand reached up beside it. The two hands pushed, pushed against the earth.
“Unnnnnh.” A low groan made me jump.
I gasped when the dirt caved in in front of a gravestone. As the ground split apart, a head poked up from underneath.
I saw tufts of black hair. Then a pale forehead. Then two empty eye sockets in a half-rotted face.
♥ We stopped inside the front door. Candlelight flickered on the cracked walls.
The shadows of the ghouls darted and bent with the light. Shadows danced on the ceiling, on the walls, making it appear as if the whole house had come to life.
Shrill shrieks tore through the frigid air. The eerie figures ducked and bobbed, bending and moving in a strange dance, a dance of silence. No music. But still they moved together, staggering, sliding stiffly in an unheard rhythm.
Jake and I found a place of safety on the front stairs behind a wooden banister. Leaning on the wood rail, we watched the ugly, silent dance.
An eyeless old man groaned as his bony arm broke from his shoulder and clattered to the floor. A toothless woman tore at her hair, her sunken eyes rolling wildly deep in their sockets.
A tall man lifted a short man’s head off his shoulders and held it high in a frightening game of keep-away. The short man grabbed frantically for his head. Jumped high for it. Grabbed it and slammed it back into place.
♥ “Is the party over?” I asked Ray. “Where are they going?”
“It’s nearly midnight,” he replied, pulling a fat bug from his hair and tossing it to the floor. “It’s time to go outside and dance the Halloween Dance.”
Ray guided Jake and me outdoors. The full moon floated high in the night sky now. The wind whistled and howled between the crooked gravestones.
“At midnight on Halloween the dead do their dance under the full moon,” Ray explained, leading us up the graveyard hill. “For one moment-one terrifying moment-we all freeze. And time stops. Time stands still. And then, when we begin to dance, when our circle moves forward, time moves forward once again.”
He sighed. “It’s a secret moment. The only time during the year when the living and the dead are one.”
..The Dance was about to begin.
Silence fell over the graveyard hill. A deeper silence than I had ever heard or felt.
No one moved. The wind stopped. The grass stood straight and still. Not a sound now…not a flicker of a shadow…not a creak of a tree…not a breath.
Time stopped.
Midnight on Halloween. And time stopped.
We were all alive. And we were all dead.
~~Halloween Dance (illustrated by Joe Rivera).
♥ I could hear my sister arguing with Maryjo down the hall. They fight every time they are together. I don’t know what it was about this time, but I heard Courtney shout, “It’s not nice to call people names, you moron!”
♥ When we returned to the kitchen, Courtney’s surprise was ready. Lulu stared in horror at the mud cookie on the kitchen counter. It had bright-purple lips, a purple scarf at its throat, and Lulu’s long black hair baked into its head.
“NOOOOOOO!” Lulu screamed. “You can’t do this!” She dove for the cookie.
But Courtney grabbed the cookie out of Lulu’s reach.
“Give it! Give it!” Lulu shouted. She made another frantic grab for it.
Courtney tossed the cookie to me. Startled, I caught it in one hand.
And its head fell off.
Lulu screamed again. She grabbed for the cookie with both hands.
Too late. Her head rolled off her neck and bounced onto the kitchen floor.
The head kept right on screaming. Its eyes bulged with horror as it rolled to a stop against the kitchen counter. “Give me that cookie! Give it!” the head screeched.
Lulu’s headless body lurched toward me, her arms outstretched. As she staggered forward, the purple scarf unraveled, revealing her open, cut neck.
Clawing the air, she took another step. Another.
Across the room her head screeched and cried, “Give it! Give it!”
Gripping the mud cookie, I backed against the wall.
The headless Lulu, her arms stretched in front of her, her hands grabbing, grabbing, closed in on me.
I was pressed against the wall. My heart thudded in terror.
I tried to duck away from her-and the cookie dropped out of my hand.
It hit the floor. I stared down at it, expecting it to be broken, but it wasn’t.
I dodged to the side as Lulu’s hands swiped the air in front of me. Now I was trapped. Trapped in the corner.
The headless girl swung her arms again.
Then…stopped. She froze.
I gaped in shock as her right shoulder crumbled away and vanished. Then the scarf disappeared. Then her arm crumbled away.
“Hey-Muttley!” I heard my sister’s cry from across the room.
I turned and saw the big dog, his head down, his teeth chomping hard.
Muttley was gobbling up the Lulu cookie!
A few seconds later Lulu was gone. Her head too.
~~The Bad Baby-Sitter (illustrated by Vince Natale).
~~Revenge of the Snowman (illustrated by Art Spiegelman).
♥ Broad creature faces on long, scaly, sun-wrinkled necks. Black eyes as big as plums, staring from deep sockets. Ancient, long-toothed faces, craggy and lined with wisdom-and sadness.
Dragons.
..“The dragons are a proud and wonderful species,” Margolin had said. “They have their own customs, their own habits. Do not be fooled into thinking they are like other animals. Their wisdom is as big as their size. Why are their eyes so sad? Because they have seen everything.”
♥ The Dragon Master cautiously stepped out of the house. As he strode up to the dragon, the dragon turned and opened its jaws wider.
And Sir Darkwind saw the boy’s head, resting so comfortably on the fat tongue.
He saw the boy’s dark hair matted wetly to his forehead. And saw the boy’s peacefully shut eyes.
Sir Darkwind scowled up at the dragon. “Did you think that would shock me? You have wasted your time, Ulrick!”
“I do not think so,” Ned said, opening his eyes. “I knew this would get you out of the house!”
He freed his arms from the dragon’s throat, then grabbed hold of the massive teeth and pulled himself out. Lowering himself to the ground, he brushed back his hair and wiped dragon drool off the front of his smock.
Sir Darkwind’s eyes bulged in surprise. “How-how have you done this, boy?”
“I made a bargain with the dragon,” Ned said. “Just as you instructed me.”
The Dragon Master’s face filled with confusion. “And now the dragon is mine?” he asked.
“Not quite,” Ned replied. “That isn’t the bargain.”
He rubbed his hands dry on the side of his smock. “You see, before the Sorcerer Margolin disappeared, he taught me many of his spells,” Ned said. “And now I’m going to show you one of my favorites.”
Ned waved his hands, mumbled several strange-sounding words-and the Dragon Master began to change.
His body appeared to melt. His face sank into his body. Leafy limbs sprouted all around him. And bright-red berries popped out around the leaves.
Ned mumbled a few more words. And then he smiled. The spell had worked. He had turned Sir Darkwind into a Gorsel bush.
The dragons all roared happily. Tears the size of raindrops, tears of joy, poured from their ancient eyes.
“My mission was to destroy the Dragon Master and free the dragons,” Ned said. “But first I had to trick him into leaving the house! As you can see, I have succeeded.”
“You have kept your bargain with me,” Ulrick said. It gazed down at the Gorsel bush. “How long will your spell last?”
“I don’t know,” Ned replied. “It doesn’t really matter-does it?”
“No. Not really,” Ulrick replied.
And then Ulrick bent its head low and began to devour the bush and its tasty berries.
~~How to Bargain with a Dragon (illustrated by Charles Burns).
~~The Mummy's Dream (illustrated by John Jude Palencar).
~~Are We There Yet? (illustrated by Greg Call).
I don’t like going into antique stores, because I know ghosts are lingering there.
I know that the old items on display are haunted by the ghosts of people who owned them. Look around the store…
The silver hairbrush is still held by the hand of the woman who brushed her hair with it so many years ago. The old leather chair isn’t empty. There’s the man who sat in it day after day, leaning his ghostly head against its soft back.
The antique jeweled beads rattle against the throat of their long-dead owner. And the wooden fire truck is still treasured by the ghostly children who played with it a hundred years ago.
Ghosts everywhere you turn.
I know. I can see them.
~~Take Me With You (illustrated by Roz Chast).
~~My Imaginary Friend (illustrated by Clay Patrick McBride).
♥ “Losers!” a man shouted from high in the bleachers. “Throw out the losers!”
“Give them a chance!” I heard MacColley shout. “These are my boys! Give them a chance!”
“Hold still,” a judge ordered. “I need to take a skin sample.”
Oh no, I thought. A skin sample? What is he going to do?
I struggled to move-in any direction. To bounce away from him. But my big, heavy body wouldn’t budge.
The judge raised a metal tool that looked like a giant cheese scraper. He pressed it against my bulging chest-and pulled.
Pain shot down my chest.
The judge pulled off a long strip of my skin. He held it up to the light, and the judges all studied it.
“Too thin,” one of them said.
“Reject,” another judge muttered.
~~Losers (illustrated by Patrick Arrasmith).
♥ “He’s kind of cute,” Julie said, brushing chimp fur off her sweater. She returned to her perch on the bed. “He just surprised me, that’s all.”
Just my luck. I try to impress a girl, and a chimpanzee knocks her to the floor.
~~Can You Draw Me? (illustrated by Bleu Turrell).