Scary not Scary (The Holidaze Book 3)

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

There were no tricks, pranks, or traps within the room as Salem entered cautiously. He stared around at the spookiest room that he had seen since entering the Halloween Holidaze.

"Why do I have no memories of this room?" Salem asked.

There were no answers. With a glance behind him, he noticed that Gardemon and Devinah had vanished. Where did they go?

A blinding light made him groan and shut his eyes. He reopened them the moment he heard a very recognisable voice.

"Salem, we must leave here," his mother Raven said to him in the calmest of voices but her eyes showed a fiery panic.

"Mum?" the Salem he saw was but a child, a child who he struggled to recall as himself.

"What happened has spoiled everything."

"Don't you mean that what you did spoiled everything," Salem sneered and stared scornfully at his mother.

"We must leave! Don't even bother to pack your things," Raven tugged on Salem's arm.

"I'm not going anywhere with you. I saw what you did to my father. Shame!" Salem waggled a finger under his mother's nose.

Raven's face crumpled but a wicked, malevolence filled it a moment later. With a quick motion, she grabbed the child's arm and shoved something at his face. Bright green gas flew into his mouth until the child Salem gagged.

"Now be a good boy for your mummy," Raven smiled but it didn't reach her cold, triumphant eyes.

"I will, Mummy. I'm a good boy," the younger Salem beamed up at the woman he had just rejected only moments before.

The older Salem stared in horror at his mother. What had she done to him? Was this how she made him into the nerdy accountant George?

"Where are we going, Mummy?" child Salem stared up at his mother with trusting eyes.

"Somewhere special. It's a hiding game and we can't let anyone find us," she replied.

"What about Funtily and Gardemon? Can't they join us?"

Raven's eyes flashed with disgust and malice as she tried to regain her composure, "no, this is a place only for you and me."

"And Da. He has to come along because we've got some spooky tricks planned."

"No!" Raven shouted in frustration, "this is a special place only for you and me, George," she softened her voice.

"I'm Salem," the boy patted his chest.

"No, my son, you're George."

Young Salem frowned at his mother, as if trying to recall something from long ago, until his face cleared and he grinned. It was a grin of such innocence and childish wonder that the older Salem felt sick.

"My name is George," the child beamed up at his mother.

Raven's satisfied grin only chilled older Salem further. His mother had taken him from here without a care for what her son wanted. She had stolen him from the Halloween Holidaze just as he had been told.

Salem blinked and the visage in front of him faded from view. The last image he saw burned into his brain. The child smiling at his mother with such trust and love while she removed him from all he'd ever known.

Voices sounded from behind him and he shook his head to clear away those disturbing images. When he recognised the growing panic in the voices he turned around to try and find them.