The Deadly Secret of the Boy in the Attic (The Time Stoppers Book 1) - Emma Dredge

The Deadly Secret of the Boy in the Attic (The Time Stoppers Book 1) by Emma Dredge

Book excerpt

“Let’s play ‘Dares’.”

Tom, Josh, Seth, and Madi looked up from scrolling through their phones. They were thirteen years old and lived in the same street. They’d known each other forever.

They had been banned from playing Dares. Last time they had accidentally smashed a car window and set fire to Josh’s dad’s slippers, so their parents had put a stop to it. But banning the game had simply made it more exciting. Part of the fun was posting their dares online. Tom had over two hundred likes the time he poured a pint of milk over his head.

“Me first,” said Josh.

He looked at his friends sprawled on the front lawn of his house, and his brain fired into action. What embarrassing things could he make them do?

“I dare Madi to say, “I love you,” to a total stranger.” He smirked. Madi flicked her long red hair away from her face and grinned. Strolling out onto the pavement she looked around for her victim. An old lady holding a bright pink handbag passed by and Madi took her chance. “I love you!” she called out. The old lady smiled and said, “Well, what a lovely thing to say.” The children found it hilarious.

“My turn,” said Madi. “I dare Josh to dance around like a gorilla,” she said.

Josh snorted. “Too easy.” Madi found ‘Dance Monkey’ on Spotify and as soon as the music started, Josh began to make slow swaying motions, his back arched and his arms hanging down, so his knuckles hit the ground. When he pretended to pick bugs out of Seth’s hair and eat them, they screamed with laughter, and all agreed that Josh had easily won his dare.

“This is going on Insta,” said Tom, who had been videoing the whole thing. Josh grinned and looked pleased with himself.

A neighbourhood cat passed by at that moment. “Seth, I dare you to put that cat in the wheelie bin,” Tom said.

Seth was disgusted. “No way, Tom, you weirdo,” he said. The cat chose that moment to jump over the fence, much to Seth’s relief.

Tom looked annoyed. His eyes rested upon the house at the end of the street. The house everyone called ‘haunted’. It was the perfect dare. “I dare you,” he said, eyes glinting at Seth, “to spend three minutes at number fifty-four.”

Silence.

“Nah, don’t make him do that,” said Josh, his previous bravado suddenly fading.

“Do it,” said Tom, scowling at Seth. “Or are you scared?”

Number fifty four was legendary. It hadn’t been lived in for years and neglect was bleeding from every angle. Paint had peeled away. Doors and window frames were rotting. The spongy porch was hanging together practically by splinters.

The local children were frightened of the house. Terrifying stories were told in the playground about ghosts and dreadful things that had supposedly been seen there. Seth didn’t like the house, but he’d never seen anything strange about it. It was simply a house that nobody lived in anymore. What was so creepy about that?

“No problem,” he said and crossed the street towards Number fifty four. The others watched him silently, their eyes fixed on him, as if he were a soldier going into battle.

Number fifty four had a driveway that swept around the back of the house. Seth knew that to win the dare, he would be expected to walk to the end of this driveway. The sun was shining, and the day was bright. Seth was glad of this. The sunshine gave him confidence. His thumb ran comfortingly along the edge of his mobile tucked in his jacket pocket.

He walked down the rock-strewn driveway, kicking a stone as he went. A niggling concern about trespassing kept poking at him.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he muttered to himself. “My parents would kill me.”

“Go on, Seth,” called out Josh from across the street.

“I’m setting the timer,” shouted Tom. “Three minutes, remember?”

Seth waved back at them, trying to look cool and unconcerned. The house creaked as he walked alongside it, the old timbers aching with age, reminding Seth of an old lady in a rocking chair. It had been abandoned for as long as he could remember.

At the back of the house, the garden was derelict and uncared for. Weeds thrived amongst broken plant pots. Seth waded through the knee-high grass as though it was water.

Something caught his eye. It was only a feather. But it was a pure white feather. It looked piercingly bright as it fluttered against the darkness of the house. He walked on, convinced that his three minutes must be up, when another white feather landed on the path. He walked towards it and picked it up. It looked just like the other one. Then in front of him lay another and another.

“Where are all these feathers coming from?” he wondered. He looked up at the roof of the house, expecting to see a family of white birds. But there was nothing. There was no sign of life whatsoever. Seth shrugged and turned to leave.

Suddenly he stopped dead. There in front of him lay hundreds of white feathers. And they were all laid out in a perfect circle.

As if in a trance, Seth stepped into the circle. He knelt to touch the feathers, wondering how they had settled into such a perfect shape. All at once the feathers began to float into the air around him. There wasn’t a breath of wind — not a trace of a breeze, but somehow hundreds of feathers started to rapidly spin around him until he felt like he was trapped in a blizzard. The feathers soared into a towering cylinder, whirling around him so fast that they became a dazzling blur with Seth at the core.

“What’s happening?” he yelled. “I don’t like it. Stop!”

Abruptly the feathers returned to earth, settling there as if nothing had ever happened.

Seth’s heart was pounding. His mouth felt dry, and his hands were beginning to sweat. There was something weird going on here. He had to get away. He ran towards the driveway, taking one last look at the feathers. As he did so, he noticed a fleeting movement at an upstairs window. He stopped and focussed his eyes carefully. The window was open.

Perhaps a bird had flown inside, or he’d seen the sweep of a long-forgotten curtain. But then he saw it. A face in the top window. Seth squinted to check that he wasn’t imagining things. But there it was. A human face — and it was staring straight back at him.

Seth held the gaze for a moment. Then panic set in and he sped away from Number fifty four, back to his friends, his heart racing.

“Three minutes and forty-two seconds exactly,” said Josh.

“Easy,” announced Seth. He didn’t want his friends to know about the last three minutes and forty-two seconds. They would think he was crazy.

Madi noticed that Seth was trembling, and she placed a hand on his shoulder. “Are you OK?” she whispered.

Seth nodded. Madi didn’t look convinced, but she said nothing.

“Dares complete,” said Tom. “Let’s go to the park.”

Seth was relieved that they hadn't noticed his shortness of breath or his shaking hands. Madi had her suspicions, but thankfully she’d kept quiet. He wiped his forehead and followed his friends towards the park.

He stopped to glance back at Number fifty four. Something weird was going on in that house. And who was that person at the window? Whoever they were, they hadn’t tried to hide. They had looked straight at him.

Seth vowed never to go near that house again.

Suddenly Josh screamed.

“Seth! Look out!”

Without thinking, Seth had stopped in the middle of a busy road and a car was hurtling towards him, lights flashing, horn blaring.

It was too late for Seth to get out of the way. He knew he was going to be hit. Everything went into slow motion as the car plunged into him. He felt a sudden rush of heat before being thrown onto the pavement. He heard Madi scream and cars screeching to a halt. He heard Tom and Josh calling his name. But the clearest sound of all was a calm voice saying, “You’ll be fine.”

Then he passed out.