Wow, right now I have 5 chapters up, and this story has 5 reviews! That's cool. ^_^
Disclaimer: well, if I owned it, I wouldn't have written something like this, now would I?
"AAAAAAAAAHHH!!" Mr. Simmons, who was still outside getting his stuff, heard coming from inside the old abandoned inn. He quickly picked his stuff up, and ran into the inn. He looked around, then spotted Arnold lying on the floor unconscious. He gasped, dropped his stuff, and ran over to Arnold's side.
"Oh my gosh, Arnold!" he yelled, slapping his hands to each side of his head. He brought his hands back down, and patted Arnold's cheek. "Arnold, can you hear me? Are you alright?" he asked, in a very worried tone of voice. He waited for a minute, then Arnold's eyes finally fluttered open. Mr. Simmons smiled, and sighed in relief.
Arnold's eyes opened all the way-maybe even a little wider than need be-and he sat up quickly. He looked around, then brought his legs up to his chest, and wrapped his arms around them. "Wh... what was that? Green... bright... lights... behind me... looked like... eyes..." he muttered, breathing heavily. Mr. Simmons looked at him strangely.
"What are you talking about, Arnold?" he asked, and Arnold looked up at him with a terrified look.
"It... it was awful!" Arnold exclaimed, not answering Mr. Simmons' question. Mr. Simmons looked at him like he had grown five heads.
"What was?" he asked, and Arnold looked down at his legs, which now had absolutely no glass in them. He stared at them for a minute, then looked back up at Mr. Simmons.
"A thing that I think was a person, that I really don't know, but whatever or whoever it was pulled the glass out of my legs." he said, looking back down at his legs, then letting them go down so he could see them even better.
Mr. Simmons stared at him with a serious look. "Arnold, how could it be someone that you don't know? We're in a GHOST TOWN." he looked down at Arnold's legs, and slightly frowned. That was strange. Arnold was right, there wasn't any more glass in them. "Wow... I wonder who it really was..." he trailed off, and looked up from Arnold's legs.
"All I know is that it's someone WE don't KNOW." he sighed, then looked at the long staircase in front of him. "First I almost die, then I see someone that I don't know in a GHOST town! This is starting to scare me. And I feel like I haven't slept for ten weeks. I just want to go to bed, and when I wake up I hope this'll all be over, and I'll still be on the bus, beside Gerald, on the way to wherever we were going." he mumbled, standing up. "Um, Mr. Simmons? I know this is kinda childish, but do you think you could come with me to my room? I'm still kinda freaked out..." he trailed off, looking down at the floor.
Mr. Simmons nodded his head. "Sure Arnold, I'll come with you to your room." he said, then they began going up the staircase. When they got to the top, Arnold chose a room, and they walked into it. It was a pretty simple room. A bed that looked like it hadn't been slept in since about 1825, a desk that was way old fashioned and had so much dust it looked like a beach without the ocean, a window that had broken years ago, a closet with a door that had holes through it because of termites, and a old clothes trunk that looked practically brand new and quite odd in this old room. Mr. Simmons looked down at Arnold who was staring at the trunk in shock. "Will this room do, Arnold?" he asked, and Arnold nodded his head.
"Yeah, this will do," he said with a smile, then ran down the rickety old stairs, grabbed his stuff from Gerald-who was shocked to see Arnold walking, let alone RUNNING-and ran back upstairs to the room he was going to be staying in. He turned around, and saw that Mr. Simmons was still in the room, looking about as shocked as Gerald. "Ok, goodnight Mr. Simmons, see you tomorrow morning!" he said, and Mr. Simmons walked out. He ran over to the door and slammed it. "Now, I hope that... thing... doesn't visit me in the night." he said, and got ready for bed.
About 2 hours later, everyone was in bed and asleep. Arnold was mumbling in his sleep, and tossing and turning. "Yeah, good idea... the soda bottle can take itself shopping for a prom dress... and can go by itself. I'm too young to go to a prom, and I don't like that kind of pop... I don't have to take it... you sure are smart sometimes, Krystle." he mumbled in his sleep, then jerked awake, sitting straight up. "Wow... talk about a weird dream. Me, taking a soda bottle to a prom and... Krystle in tights telling me to go to P.S. 118's dance instead because I'm too young to go to a prom and I barely know her? Ha, what a crazy dream..." he mumbled, and laid back down against his pillow, which was just about as comfortable as sleeping in a pile of dirt.
He yawned, then, in the middle of the yawn, completely paused, and his eyes widened. Beside him on the bed, he felt something-that almost felt like skin, but not quite-that felt so cold it could cool down a bathtub full of steaming hot water in under one minute. He slowly turned his body around, to where the coldness was coming from. At first, he saw absolutely nothing, but the cold was getting icier. He shivered, then completely paused, staring at where the cold was coming from, his eyes growing wider in fear.
There, right above the pillow, were a bright emerald green pair of eyes, that looked like they were in need of help. Arnold started breathing heavily, and began backing out of the bed. Then, right under the eyes, a smile appeared, and the need-of-help look in the eyes disappeared. That did it for Arnold, no one's smile could glow in the dark. He screamed, and jumped out of the bed. But as he did so, the eyes and smile faded away into the dark.
Mr. Simmons heard the scream, jumped out of his own bed, and ran into Arnold's room. Since the house had been before electricity, he had to take a flashlight along, so he couldn't see anything very well, and he tripped over many things trying to get into the room. He shined the flashlight on Arnold, who was hyperventilating, and pointing at the bed with a shaky hand. Mr. Simmons sighed, and walked farther into the room. "What happened, Arnold?" he asked, making Arnold jump, and make a squeak like sound.
"Uh... eh... ah... it... was... there... bed... cold... ah..." he stuttered, staring at the bed, which was completely empty now. Mr. Simmons walked over to Arnold, and looked at the bed, which Arnold was pointing at again.
"Let me guess; you had a nightmare about the thing that scared you earlier?"
Arnold swallowed hard, then slowly nodded his head up and down. "Yeah... that must be it. Just a nightmare." he said, and began to shake again. He crawled into the bed, and rested his head down on the pillow. "I'm fine now, Mr. Simmons. Thanks for clearing up that it was just a nightmare..." he trailed off in a yawn. Mr. Simmons nodded his head, then walked over the door, opened it, and when he was halfway out, he turned around and looked at Arnold.
"Now don't scare me like that, ok Arnold? I already thought you were dead once, and seeing your limp, lifeless body again would definitely not be special, ok?" he chuckled, and Arnold tried his best to laugh, but it came out sounding almost like a cough.
"Heh... ok," Arnold said, then looked at Mr. Simmons, and then looked back down at the spot where the eyes and smile had been. He smiled, snuggled down into his bed, and before he could even say goodnight to Mr. Simmons, was out like a light. Mr. Simmons smiled, then left.
About an hour later (time sure does fly, doesn't it?), Arnold woke up. He sat up in the bed, and stretched. "I'm kinda thirsty... I wonder if this place has water still in it?" he wondered, climbing out of the bed, and slipping into his slippers. He walked out of the room, and down the stairs into the room that used to be called a kitchen. He searched the cupboards, and finally found a good glass. It looked like it was a millennium old.
He walked around the kitchen for a while, not finding anything that even looked similar to a sink. He figured that maybe there was another kitchen, so he left that one, and began his next search: find another kitchen. By the time he had found a closet with ten coats in it (most likely from his classmates), a library, about ten boudoirs each with two kids in it, another closet but with spare pillows and blankets instead of coats, he was so thirsty he would have drank just about anything he had found.
He opened a door, and shined his flashlight in the room. He smiled brightly, because it was a bathroom. 'Cause, as you know, bathrooms have sinks. He walked over to the counter, and his jaw dropped. No sink, just a big bowl with mildew all around inside of it. He grabbed the huge bowl, and looked underneath it. Nothing but mildew underneath. He groaned, and set the bowl back down. Absolutely nothing to drink, and he was completely parched.
He reached into his pocket, and searched it for a minute, before pulling out a packet of gum. He half smiled, and shook his head. "This will have to do, I guess..." he sighed, pulling a piece of gum out of the packet, unwrapping it, and popping it into his mouth. He left the bathroom, and began to search for the stairs that he could go up to get to his room. He walked into the first kitchen that he had found, when his flashlight suddenly began to flicker. He looked down at it in fear. "No... no, don't go out! Don't!" he shouted at it, then remembered that there were other people sleeping in the building. He shook the flashlight, but unfortunately, it started to flicker worse. He began to panic. "No, please don't go out!" he whispered to it, shaking it more violently. Finally, it went out.
He began to breath heavily, and practically sweat. He shook the flashlight again, then began running somewhere to find some kind of light. He hit about ten different walls, before freezing where he was standing, staring straight ahead of him. Just what he had feared. The person or thing that he had seen before was standing in front of him. The really scary thing about the thing this time, was that it spoke to him. "Do you need any help...?" it asked in a whisper, and it sounded female.
"..." he stood in one spot, shaking like crazy, and breathing so hard it hurt. Then the smile appeared underneath the eyes again, and it started moving closer to him.
"Come on, trust me, I don't bite..." it whispered in the same voice, but softer this time. As it gradually got closer to him, he could feel the briskness in the air around it. It finally got so close that it put it's hand on Arnold's shoulder. He looked down, expecting to see just darkness like everything else, but the hand on his shoulder was glowing like the eyes. He looked back up, just in time to see it vanish into thin air.
"... AAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!" he screamed, more afraid than he had been the first and second siting of the thing, which he could now tell was female. There was no doubt about it now, what he saw wasn't human... well, it had once been, but now, it was a ghost. He turned around, and began running as fast as his short legs could possibly carry him. He didn't know where he was going, but for some reason it felt like he was running in the right direction. He kept running in that direction, when he suddenly felt his feet getting higher with each step, like as if he was going up stairs. He continued running and screaming, until he finally reached the top of the stairs, and into the room that he figured was Mr. Simmons. He was terrified, and he didn't think he would be able to sleep by himself in his room.
He scrambled up onto the bed, and hid underneath the covers, shaking like he was in a bathtub with ice in it. Because when he had crawled onto the bed the bed shook, Mr. Simmons jolted awake. He sat up, and looked down at the shivering lump in the covers. He lifted the covers up to reveal Arnold, with his eyes shut tight, and his hands over his head. "Arnold, what are you doing in here, in my bed?" he asked, but he figured that he already knew that it was Arnold's nightmare again. Arnold slightly stopped shaking, and looked up at his teacher, fear evident in his eyes.
"I... I was downstairs looking for something to drink, and my flashlight went out. Then I ran around trying to find some kind of light source, then this girl was in front of me! No, not any girl I knew, because her eyes GLOWED and so did her smile and her HAND!!" he exclaimed, closing his eyes again and curling up into a tighter ball. Mr. Simmons sighed, and shook his head. Poor Arnold was the only one getting these 'visits' that were obviously delusions, and he used to be such a brave child. After this, Mr. Simmons figured, Arnold probably would be the most fainthearted of his whole class. But why was he seeing these illusions?
"Would you like to sleep in here tonight, Arnold?" he asked, and Arnold nodded his head vigorously. Then Mr. Simmons thought of an explanation for the illusions. "Now Arnold, don't be so scared! Those illusions you saw were probably something your tired mind thought up. Ok?" he said, making Arnold smile and nodded his head slowly.
"Yeah, you're right, that must have been it. Hee, hee, hee... man, I'm turning into a chicken on this trip." he yawned, as his eyelids slowly began to shut. Soon, he was way gone in sleep.
That morning, everyone but Arnold was awake. Mr. Simmons walked into his room, where Arnold was still asleep, and over to his bed, where Arnold was lying on his stomach, face down on the pillow. "Arnold, wake up, it's morning!" Arnold's eyes fluttered open, and he stared up at Mr. Simmons for a minute before rolling back over and groaning.
"Mornin' Mr. Simmons. Can't I please sleep a little longer? Please?" he begged, and Mr. Simmons shook his head. Arnold groaned again, and covered his head with the pillow. "But I'm so tired because of last night..." he whined, and Mr. Simmons crossed his arms. "Alright, I'll get up, I'll get up." he sighed, and sat up, making the pillow fall off his head. He stood up, walked out of the room, and back into his own room so he could get dressed. As soon as he walked into his own room, Helga peaked her head in, a smirk on her face.
"So, if it isn't the scaredy-cat football head? Have any more nightmares?" she asked, and Arnold spun around to her, a scowl on his face. Mr. Simmons told about his illusions, and he figured he would probably be teased for the rest of the trip, but he didn't want to be teased so early.
He walked over to the door, then half smiled, and grabbed the edge of the door. "Bye-bye, Helga, see you downstairs." he said, and slammed the door on her face. She fell backwards, rubbing her nose, which was now about as red as a cherry. She scowled at the door, growled something like 'stupid football head, that I just so happen to love,' under her breath, and walked back downstairs. While Helga was getting angrier with every step she took, Arnold was leaning against his door, even angrier than her. "Rrrrrrrr..." he growled, then walked over to his suitcase to get dressed.
He quickly got dressed into his normal attire, then ran down the stairs into the main room. It was a mix between a foyer and a livingroom. It had a few couches, a few small tables scattered around the room, but yet it had a marble floor, and the front doors. No one was in this room, so he figured they were most likely in the kitchen he had visited that night. He walked into it, and saw them all eating doughnuts, which was quite flustering, because this was an abandoned building, and there shouldn't be any kind of food (but he wasn't thinking all that well that night, and that's the reason why he thought there would be water somewhere in the old hotel). When he walked in, everyone turned to him and began laughing.
"Hey Arnold!" Gerald greeted, without laughing, because he was Arnold's best friend. But inside he was cracking up.
Arnold smiled at his best friend, then walked over and they did their 'secret' thumb-shake. Then Harold decided to speak up, like he always does. "Hey Arnoooooooooold, did that big bad ghost scare you? Poor wittle Arnoooooooooold! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!" he laughed, and Arnold sent a glare his way. By that time, Harold was rolling around on the floor, almost hysterical.
"Oh man, football head! You must have been awfully scared to actually run and climb into an adult's bed and have to sleep in the same room!" Helga laughed, almost as hysterical as Harold, but not quite. Arnold rolled his eyes, and walked out of the room. Little did Helga know why. As he began to leave, he slightly smirked, and chuckled under his breath. Helga watched him leave, then raised half of her unibrow. "What got into him?" she asked under her breath, placing her hands on her hips.
"Don't ask me, I don't barely know him," Krystle said, who had overheard what Helga had said because she was right next to her. Helga slightly jumped, and looked at her cousin as if she was going to wring her neck any minute. Krystle gulped, and began slowly backing away. "Uh, I'll jsut leave now... sorry to bother you, cuz..." she said, then turned around and ran to the plate with doughnuts on it.
Suddenly, everyone became silent, slightly scaring Helga. She moved her eyes from side to side, trying to see what was all the silence about. Then she heard something behind her, making her eyes go wide. "Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha HAH AHA HAH AH AHA HA HA HAH AH AH HAH!!!" she heard someone laugh behind her, making her scream a blood curdling scream, and run underneath a table. She sat there shaking for a minute, then heard a REAL laugh, that she knew for sure was Arnold's. She scowled, and peaked out from underneath the table to see Arnold where she had been standing, laughing. "See, Helga, THAT'S what it's like!" he laughed, bending over so he could see her face better. She crawled out from underneath the table, brushing herself off. "Are we even now?" he asked, and stopped laughing.
Helga gave him a 'yeah-right-like-we-would-be-even-after-that-little-stunt' look, and then rolled her eyes. "Whatever," she said, and began walking towards the stairs. She walked up the stairs and into her room, all the while thinking about what Arnold did. "Stupid football head... I should wring his neck for that!" she mumbled, wringing one of her t-shirts like a washrag. She gritted her teeth, then stopped, dropped the shirt, and glanced from side to side. Then she pulled the locket out of her shirt, and stared at it lovingly. "Oh my love, why do I ridicule you so that you may turn and frighten me? Why do I have to be so unpleasant for you to be with? Why? Why?! WHY!?!" she cried, flinging her right arm over both of her eyes. Then she heard something. She took her arms down from her eyes, frowning, and cracked her knuckles on her right hand. "Brainy, why do you ALWAYS sneak up on me like this?" she muttered, flinging her fist backwards. Her eyes widened, and she brought her fist back down. "Uh... Brainy? You're suppose to be directly behind me so I can punch you, don't you remember?" she asked, and the breathing got louder. It didn't sound like Brainy's, but who else's could it be? She gulped, and flung her right and left fists backwards... still absolutely no luck.
"Ok, if you don't want to come out, I'll find you." she said nervously, and tried again. The breathing was getting steadily louder, and she was getting steadily more frightened. She tried about ten more times, but each time nothing happened. Then she completely froze. She felt the breathing going down her neck, and the rest of her back felt cold from the person or thing. She calmed down, and rolled her eyes. "Brainy, you really need to warm yourself up, you are colder than this old room." she said, flinging her fist back. She froze again. She had hit nothing, and the person was directly behind her. She turned around so fast that she was sure she was going to fall down, and her eyes went wide. "AAAAAAAAAHHH!!" she screamed, because right in front of her stood a young teenage girl in an old fashioned outfit. She had wavy black hair, and bright green eyes; she also seemed to have a certain glow to her body.
"Hi," said the girl, making Helga scream louder. She ran past the girl, and down the stairs to the kitchen. As she passed the girl, though, she didn't notice her face into thin air.
She ran down the stairs, and into the kitchen, screaming all the way. When she entered the room, everyone turned to her, and she fell to the floor. Mr. Simmons rushed over to her side, and lifted her up. "Helga, are you alright?! What happened?" he asked, and Helga looked up at him, and stopped screaming, but continued to breath heavily. She looked as white as bleach makes sheets.
"In... my... my room! A girl... glowing... teenage... black hair..." she said, trying to remember what she had seen. She looked over to Arnold, who's eyes were as big as they could possibly get, and his jaw was dropped.
"Did she have green eyes that almost glow?!" he asked, and Helga nodded her head vigorously. Arnold gulped, and turned to Mr. Simmons. "You must believe me now that Helga saw it, too!" he said, and Mr. Simmons sighed. Sure, now he had two students that had seen the 'ghost', but it was obvious why they had seen it.
"Arnold, Helga must have saw the girl because your story scared her. It's a simple explanation. Alright?" he asked, and Arnold looked down at the floor, slowly nodding his head. But, Helga wasn't buying it.
"It was horrible! She glowed... glowed!!" she cried, tears streaming down her face. Everyone in the room, except for Phoebe, Arnold, and Mr. Simmons, began to laugh.
"Now Arnold and Helga are BOTH going crazy!!" Harold laughed, collapsing on the floor again. Helga sent a glare his way that if looks could kill he would be dead-the look shut him up pretty quickly.
She continued crying, until Phoebe got tired of it. She walked over to Helga, and whacked her over the head. "Helga, didn't you hear Mr. Simmons? You just saw an illusion that your mind thought up because consciously you were scared of Arnold's story!" she said, and Helga stopped crying, staring up at Phoebel ike she said that cats could tap dance.
