But how are you going to get there?
The factory was a good fifteen-minute drive from Spratling Manor.
You don’t have a car. Remember? You came over here with Sheriff Hargrove.
“You think you can run away, dolly?”
Eberhart was gaining on them.
Judy would ponder her transportation problems later. Right now she needed to run. She followed Zipper around a corner and saw moonlight leaking in around the front doorjamb. If they could make it outside, they might have a chance.
“Thought I’d have to settle for killing your boy. Now I get to kill you and his dog, too!”
“Faster, Zipper!” They raced to the front door, yanked it open, and then slammed it shut behind them. Judy couldn’t tell who was panting louder: her or the dog.
“Hey there.”
She turned around. Billy O’Claire was standing on the porch. He looked paler than usual.
“That toilet upstairs still giving you trouble?”
“N-no,” Judy stammered, and tried not to stare at the ghost she had actually known when he was alive. “Our house burned down.”
“Well, that’s one way to fix your plumbing problems. Oh, I’m supposed to tell you to borrow the old lady’s car. It’s around back. A Caddy. The keys are in the ignition.”
“Noooo!” It was Eberhart, wailing on the other side of the front door.
“You better hurry before my grandfather figures out he can walk through walls.”
“Thanks,” said Judy.
“Hey, your son’s taking care of my son. I figure it’s the least I can do.”
Judy and Zipper took off running and saw the Cadillac parked in the side driveway.
Zipper jumped through the open window and bounded over to the passenger seat, where he yapped at Judy to hurry up and drive! She pulled open the heavy door, climbed behind the steering wheel, and twisted the ignition. The antique auto, meticulously maintained by the chauffeur for five decades, started right up.
“Hang on,” Judy said. She slipped the car into gear and pointed it toward the winding driveway that would lead them down to the front gates. Zipper stuck his head out the window and barked goodbye to Billy O’Claire as the plumber faded into the night.
Judy pressed down on the gas pedal.
Zipper cocked an ear.
Then Judy heard it, too: another car, revving its engine.
She checked the rearview mirror and saw Clint Eberhart behind the wheel of a 1958 Thunderbird convertible.
Great, she thought. The car’s a ghost, too!
It was a standoff: Spratling had the knife; Zack had the baby.
The chauffeur stood trembling between them.
Miss Spratling stepped into a pool of cold moonlight. She rotated the knife in her gnarled fist. Its sharp edge glistened.
“Clint’s coming,” she hissed. “Do you hear him? Listen! He’s riding here on the wind.”
Zack heard the wind whistling through a broken-out windowpane.
“That’s Clint,” Miss Spratling insisted. “He’s coming back to kill you and Mr. Willoughby.”
Frightened, Willoughby braced himself against the pole.
“You should go, son,” he said, nearly breathless. “Take the baby. Run away. Hurry! Before Mr. Eberhart returns.”
“Don’t worry, sir,” said Zack. “Eberhart can’t hurt us. He’s a ghost. He can’t do anything except try to scare us into hurting ourselves or giving her what she needs.”
“Really?” said Miss Spratling. “Are you sure about that, Mr. Jennings? Clint is different. He was trapped inside that tree so long, he has acquired certain special powers.”
Zack heard another window rattling behind him.
He whipped around to see if it was Eberhart launching some kind of sneak attack.
No. It was just a scraggly tree branch, buffeted by the wind, tapping its fingers against the dingy glass.
The old lady cackled. “What’s the matter, boy? Afraid of trees?”
Zack spun back around. “No,” he said. “Not anymore.”
The Cadillac had an old-fashioned cell phone the size of a bread loaf. The chauffeur had probably installed it sometime in the late eighties, but it still worked. Judy called 911.
“Tell Sheriff Hargrove that Zack Jennings is being held at Spratling Clockworks. Out back in the machine shop.”
She knew that the 911 operator would immediately send all available units screaming to the abandoned old factory. She didn’t, however, mention the phantom convertible chasing after her as she and Zipper sped down Route 13 in Gerda Spratling’s 1952 Cadillac Coupe DeVille.
Now Zack heard something else behind him: police sirens! The cavalry was coming!
Miss Spratling heard them, too.
“Back here!” Zack screamed. “Back here!”
“Zack?” yelled a voice, far off in the distance.
Zack, clutching that baby carrier, hurried over to the door.
“We’re back here!”
He heard something metal hit the floor. He twirled around.
The old lady had dropped the knife and was getting away through the back door.
Zack wanted to chase after her, but he still had the baby and Mr. Willoughby to worry about.
“Back here!” he screamed. “Hurry!”
“She got away!” Zack said when the police arrived two minutes later.
“Don’t worry, Zack,” said Sheriff Hargrove. “You did the right thing. Thanks to you, the baby is safe.”
“She’s in a silver Hyundai. The car that followed her to the crossroads every Monday! I saw her drive away!”
“Well, she won’t get far. We’ll catch her.”
“Where’s Judy?”
“We don’t know, son.”
“Is she safe?”
The sheriff shook his head. “We don’t know that, either.”
Gerda Spratling had learned to drive when she was sixteen.
However, with Mr. Willoughby constantly at her beck and call, she had not driven much in the intervening fifty-six years. Now she was hunched behind the wheel of Sharon’s silver Hyundai, moving slowly. She was headed home to the manor because she sensed Clint would be there waiting for her.
Clint will know what to do!
Clint Eberhart’s Thunderbird was gaining on Judy, so she gunned the Cadillac, jammed the accelerator all the way to the floor.
“Come on, ghost boy! Show me what you’ve got!”
She bounded up a knoll, left the pavement, and landed with a rocking thud that sent Zipper’s head bobbling like a dashboard dachshund.
There was a slow-moving vehicle blocking the road in front of them.
A silver Hyundai doing thirty-five miles per hour.
The Cadillac pulled up alongside the Hyundai.
Gerda Spratling saw Mrs. Jennings behind the wheel. “How dare she! That woman stole my automobile!”
The old lady stomped on the gas pedal with all the strength her surging hate could provide.
Judy saw the blinking red light where 13 crossed 31 and decided to barrel through the intersection to make Miss Spratling and Clint Eberhart chase after her. She’d lead them both away from the factory and Zack and out into the Connecticut countryside.
Maybe all the way to New Hampshire.
She looked both ways when she hit the crossroads but didn’t even think about stopping.
Gerda Spratling squeezed the steering wheel, leaned forward, and willed the whining Hyundai to move faster.