Chillz Hillz #4: No Way Out: Chillz Hillz, #4

By Kerrigan Valentine

Something weird is going on.

Every October, Raven and her dad build a haunted house to scare trick-or-treaters on Halloween night. But this year is different. Their haunted house is coming alive . . . and it doesn't want to let Raven out!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kerrigan Valentine
• Release date: Oct 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386786955

Book preview

CHILLZ HILLZ #4: NO WAY OUT

by Kerrigan Valentine

Copyright 2018 by Kerrigan Valentine

Cover image courtesy Depositphotos and @Nomadsoul1

Cover by The Spookmaster

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Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Eye of newt.

Check.

Skull of dragon.

Check.

Dead man’s toes.

Raven Blackthorne searched through the milk crate as Dad waited, his pen hovering above the clipboard. I don’t see them, Dad.

Dad peered at her over his wire-rimmed glasses. Are you sure?

Hooking her long hair behind her ears, Raven sifted through wall stickers, plastic spiders, and candles. An unwrapped piece of chocolate was in there, too. She popped it into her mouth.

Did you just eat an ancient piece of candy, young lady? Dad scolded.

Yup.

Next time, share. What in the world happened to the dead man’s toes?

Maybe they’re in another crate. Raven looked in dismay around the living room. They didn’t live on this side of the duplex. Dad used it for storage.

They began to search. Raven’s father loved Halloween. His decorations were packed into thirty milk crates, twenty-four jumbo-sized bags, and fourteen moving boxes. Even more decorations were upstairs and in the backyard. The checklists had taken all afternoon and they still weren’t done by dinner.

Luckily, Raven loved Halloween, too. The costumes. The makeup. The chills and thrills and candy. On Halloween night, she could be anybody. A ghost. A dinosaur. A cat. A witch. She could be the bravest of superheroes or the cruelest of villains. It was her favorite holiday, even more than Christmas. Dad said Halloween had been Mom’s favorite holiday as well. She died when Raven was two in a bad accident on the freeway.

Every year, Dad and Raven transformed the unoccupied side of their duplex into a haunted house for trick-or-treaters. That was why they had so many decorations. And every year, Blackthorne Manor was voted the fourth spookiest attraction in the city of Chills Hills.

Fourth place, over and over again. It was maddening. The Blackthornes really wanted to break into the top three. But they had to beat one of the top three first, and nobody beat the top three.

Nobody.

House of Screams was a few blocks away from their duplex. Raven didn’t know why House of Screams always won third place when it hadn’t made her scream once. Yard of Yawns was a better name for it. All you did was wander in a full circle around the outside of the house as bushes shook and ghostly faces appeared in windows. What was scary about that?

The second-place winner was always Dark Castle. It was a ride at the Fall Carnival in the fairgrounds, and it was pretty amazing. Raven hadn’t screamed, but she did jump twice. It took a lot to make the daughter of a horror film director jump. Dad had taught her all the tricks of the trade, even though he didn’t direct horror movies anymore.

Zombie Run had been the first-place winner for as long as anyone remembered. That was over at Chills Hills High School. It was so scary that a lot of people didn’t get all the way to the end. You had to be thirteen years old and up to buy a ticket, so Raven couldn’t go for another two years.

She suspected that even Zombie Run wasn’t going to scare her very much. It was difficult to scare someone in the scare business.

Spiders? Snore.

Darkness? Shrug.

Monsters? Whatever.

But Blackthorne Manor was excellent at scaring other people. Nobody was ever going to sweep the crown away from Zombie Run, or second place from Dark Castle, but there was no reason that Blackthorne Manor should keep losing out to the total lameness that was House of Screams! She wanted to win third place so badly. Everything depended on the newspaper’s Fright Committee. The five members went to all of the haunted attractions in Chills Hills on Halloween to see which was the best.

Bending over, Dad rummaged through another milk crate. I have no idea what happened to them! How do you lose a jar full of fake toes?

Raven came across a jar, but it had a shrunken head inside. I don’t know.

They must be around here somewhere! Did you take them to the other half of the house for some reason? Could they be upstairs in your room?

Why would I want a jar of toes in my room? Raven protested. They kept their decorations on this side of the duplex. That was Dad’s rule so Halloween didn’t take over everything. Didn’t a lady knock over a jar by accident with her umbrella last year? Was it the jar with the toes?

Right! Dad straightened sharply and ran his hand through his thinning thatch of brown hair. I forgot all about that. I swept up the glass and put the toes . . . I put the toes in the assorted body parts bag.

He set down the clipboard on the ottoman. Opening the assorted body parts bag, his hand vanished inside and reappeared with a fake toe. Found them!

A car pulled up to the curb outside. Raven looked through the screen door. It’s the pizza guy!

Wave him over here before he tries to deliver to the wrong side, Dad said, dumping the entire bag of body parts onto the carpet.

Raven rolled aside the crystal ball on the armchair. It was pinning down a twenty-dollar bill. Snatching up the money, she went out to the porch and squeezed around the stacks of pumpkins. There were one hundred pumpkins altogether, delivered just today. Pumpkins were dirt cheap in Chills Hills since there were so many pumpkin patches. No matter the time of year, you could buy a pumpkin in the grocery store.

People did. Even in February. They carved it with a heart or a smiley face for Valentine’s Day, or glued paper cupids to it, and that was a totally normal thing to do in Chills Hills. Not so normal anywhere else. Raven had been to thirty-six states, so she knew what was normal and what was not. Chills Hills marched to the beat of a different drummer, as Dad liked to say.

Some people thought Chills Hills was haunted. Chills Hills sounded like a place that would be haunted, and the pumpkins added to the spooky effect. But the origins of the name were completely ordinary: Chills was the last name of the man who founded the city long ago, and it was built on hills. Nothing spooky about that.

Jumping over the last step, she met the pizza guy coming up the walkway. Wow! he said, spying the pumpkins on the porch. Are you going to carve all of those yourself?

Pumpkins were only fun to carve when you had one or two. Not one hundred. Raven shook her head. We have a pumpkin carving party the day before Halloween.

I think I found most of my toes! Dad shouted from the living room. A few of them rolled under the sofa.

The pizza guy looked startled.

Raven swapped the money for the pizza. Keep the change.

Down on his hands and knees when she came in, Dad was pulling a severed toe out from under the ottoman. Last . . . one, he grunted, and dropped it into a new jar. The rest of the assorted body parts were back in their bag. Why don’t we just eat in here? I’ll see if there are any plates in the kitchen. Did I say kitchen? I meant mad scientist’s lab!

While he was gone, Raven picked up the clipboard and flipped through the pages. Beneath all of the checklists was this year’s design for the haunted house.

She traced the path with her finger. Trick-or-treaters would start at the spooky safari in the driveway, and then enter the house through the back door to the mad scientist’s lab. Aunt Alex would be dressed up as the mad scientist. She was bringing over her orange corn snake Danger Noodle, too. Danger Noodle himself wouldn’t be dressed up, but his vivarium would be garnished in cobwebs. He slept through his various parts every Halloween, whether he had a starring role or just blended into the background scenery.

From the mad scientist’s lab, the terrified trick-or-treaters would pass down the hallway to the dining room, which was Raven’s séance room. She had designed it herself, and she was going to be the medium. With lights shining within the crystal ball and a projector putting ghosts on the ceiling, she would implore spirits of