The Howling Ghost by Christopher Pike Page A

knew he hadn’t made it up. Someone had taught it to him. She just didn’t know who. Maybe his mother or father, who had lived in Springville when her father was five.
    Cindy wondered if he had ever walked out to the lighthouse.
    Without warning, the top of the lighthouse began to glow right then.
    â€œOh no,” Cindy muttered as she got to her feet. Everyone knew the lighthouse was deserted. A pillar of spider webs and dust. Light had not shone from its windows since she’d moved to Springville. Her mother said it hadn’t been turned on in decades.
    Yet as she watched, a powerful beam of white light stabbed out from the top of the lighthouse. It was turned toward the sea. It raked over the water like an energy beam fired from an alien ship. The surface of the water churned harder beneath its glare, as if it were boiling. Steam appeared to rise up from the cold water. For a moment she thought she saw something just under the surface. A ruined ship, maybe, wrecked on a sharp reef that grew over it with the passing years.
    Then the light snapped toward the shore, spinning halfway around. It focused on the jetty. Still moving, still searching.
    Cindy watched in horror as it crept toward her brother.
    He was already partway down the jetty, his eyes focused on his feet.
    â€œNeil!” she screamed.
    He looked up just as the light fell on him. It was as if something physical had grabbed him. For a few seconds his short brown hair stood straight up. Then his feet lifted off the boulder he was standing on. The light was so bright it was blinding. But Cindy got the impression that two ugly hands had emerged from the light to take hold of him. As a second scream rose in her throat, she thought she saw the hands tighten their grip.
    â€œGet away, Neil!” she cried.
    Cindy was running toward her brother. But the light was faster than she was. Before she even reached the jetty, Neil was yanked completely into the air. For several seconds he floated above the rocks and surf, an evil wind tugging at his hair, terror in his eyes.
    â€œNeil!” Cindy kept screaming, leaping from boulder to boulder, not caring where her feet landed. But that was her undoing. She was almost to her brother,within arm’s reach, when her shoes hit a piece of wet seaweed. She slipped and went down hard. Pain flared in her right leg. She had scraped the skin off her knee.
    â€œCindy!” her brother finally called. But the word sounded strange, the cry of a lost soul falling into a deep well. As Cindy watched, her brother was yanked out over the water, away from the jetty. He was held suspended, as the waves crashed beneath his feet and the wind howled.
    Yet this was not a natural wind. It howled as if alive. Or else it shouted as if it hungered for those still living. The sound seemed to come from the beam of light itself. There was a note of sick humor in the sound. A wicked chuckle. It had her brother. It had what it wanted.
    â€œNeil,” Cindy whispered, in despair.
    He tried to speak to her, perhaps to say her name again.
    But no words came out.
    The beam of light suddenly moved.
    It jerked her brother farther out over the sea. Far out over the rough surf. For a few seconds Cindy could still see him, a struggling shadow in the glare of the cold light. But then the beam swept upward, toward the sky. And went out.
    Just like that, the light vanished.
    Taking her brother with it.
    â€œNeil!” Cindy cried.
    But the wind continued to howl.
    And her cry was lost over the cruel sea.
    No one heard her. No one came to help.

2
    T wo days after Cindy Makey’s brother was kidnapped by the howling ghost, Adam Freeman and Sally Wilcox were having breakfast with their friend Watch. Breakfast was doughnuts and milk at the local bakery. Of course, Sally was having coffee instead of milk because, as she said, the caffeine helped steady her nerves.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with your nerves?” Adam asked, munching on a