Read Online Nightmare Hour by R. L. Stine - Free Book Online Page A

out at his dad’s gym.
    He likes to show off how strong he is. But the poor guy has a million allergies. He starts sneezing as soon as we come down the stairs.
    Julie and Valerie almost look like sisters. They’re both tall and thin, with short, brown hair and brown eyes. Valerie wears glasses and Julie doesn’t.
    That’s not their only difference. Julie is shy, with a soft, whispery voice. She’s the brain in the group. She always has a book or magazine in her hand.
    Valerie can never sit still long enough to read a book. She’s always talking and laughing, always scheming, always coming up with wild plans for us to make tons and tons of money.
    Me? I’m the runt of the group, the only short one. I have brown hair clipped in a crew cut and a thin, serious, hangdog face. People are always telling me to cheer up, even when I’m happy.
    Bill and I spend most of our time in the basement playing video games. Julie likes to read through the stacks of old books and magazines piled everywhere.
    Valerie likes to call friends on the old-fashioned black phone beside the couch and make plans. It’s funny. Valerie spends so much time making plans, she never has time to do anything!
    When we get bored, we explore the storage rooms and closets. You’d be amazed at the great stuff we find.
    One afternoon we were shuffling through a stack of old restaurant menus.
    â€œRobb, what is your dad going to do with these piles and piles of junk?” Valerie asked.
    â€œHe wants to go through it all,” I told her. “He wants to see if any of it is valuable. But it’s going to take a long time. The house is over a hundred years old. And I think the people who lived here were weird. They never threw out anything! ”
    Behind us on the couch, Julie was reading through a pile of yellowed movie magazines. “These are so ancient,” she said. “Who are these people? George Brent? Robert Taylor? It’s like reading a history book.”
    â€œHey--check this out!” Bill cried.
    He bent over a wooden crate and came up with a stack of rectangular cardboard boxes. “Old board games. Steeplechase. What kind of game is that? And this one’s called Pah-Cheesi. Weird.”
    He blew the dust off the top box and instantly started to sneeze. He sneezed again, even harder. He didn’t stopsneezing until Valerie took the games away from him.
    â€œSome of these might be worth a lot of money,” Valerie said excitedly. “I’ll bet these games are at least a hundred years old.”
    â€œYuck.” Bill wiped his nose with a tissue. “They smell a hundred years old. I hate that mildewy smell.”
    â€œThat’s not the games--it’s your shirt!” I told him.
    Julie and Valerie laughed. Bill marched over and pretended to strangle me. He likes to wrestle and punch people and kid around. But I’m so much smaller than him, it’s never a fair fight.
    Valerie had wandered over to a closet. “Wow. This is awesome! Check it out!”
    We all turned to see the treasure she had found, a big, square camera. “You can probably get hundreds of dollars for this,” she said, raising it to her face, clicking the shutter. “Robb, your dad should show this stuff to my parents. They could sell it at their antique store. You’ve got a fortune down here!”
    I glanced around the basement. There were at least a dozen closets and storage rooms, all crammed with old stuff. And there was a room locked with a rusted padlock that we had never even opened.
    I bent over the big carton that had held the old board games and glimpsed something black down at the bottom.
    A black scarf?
    No. A mask.
    I picked it up, shook it out, and slid the mask over my face. “Check it out--I’m Zorro!”
    â€œZorro? No way!” Bill called across the room. “You look like a bank robber.”
    I straightened the mask so that I could see clearly