The Ghost in my iPad - 444: The Ghost in my iPad, #2

By E C Russell and E L Russell

In book 2 of the Ghost series, their worst fear comes true when the Holiday Snatcher escapes and kidnaps their friend Candy. Sixth grader, Jengo Allbright, with his best buddy, Billy, means to get her back. He enlists the help of his previously kidnapped sister and his friendly ghost, but his efforts are thwarted by the inexplicable absences of his ghost, the restraints of being grounded, indecipherable clues, and very bad food. Will Jengo and his crew be able to leap the hurdles and find Candy in time?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Entanglement Publishing
• Release date: Dec 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393715955

Book preview

Chapter One

Prologue 4:44

Halloween night

Candy put her bag of Halloween loot down and took off her shoe to shake out the tiny pebble that had hopped in when she walked down that last gravel driveway. Rats. How could something that small hurt so much? Her mother, who warned her constantly to stay close, had walked on without her. Jeez . She was thirteen years old, not a baby. She was old enough to go trick or treating without her mother.

Candy! Keep up.

If it were so important, you’d think she’d wait. Candy had trouble seeing through her rubber mask and the tattered hem of her long zombie dress kept tangling in her shoelaces while she tried to tie them.

Candy! Get up here!

Up here. Down here. Her mom was always telling her what to do these days. She’d wanted to go trick or treating with her friends, but her mom has a categorical No.

Honestly, Mom, I’ll be just as safe with them. Why do I have to go with you? Her complaints did no good.

You’ll come with me and that’s the end of it.

What kind of logic was in that? So here she was, frantically messing with shoelaces so she could catch up. Heaving a disgusted sigh, she rolled her rubber zombie face to the back of her head. When her mom called again from down the street, Candy mumbled, Catch up, catch up, ketchup. Grumbling, she switched to retie the laces on her other shoe. Mustard, mustard, mustard.

Even when they ran into Jengo and Billy at the third house, she wasn’t allowed to stay with them. They were no fun anyway. They were in their ‘no-girls-allowed’ mode.

I’m only here because Mom said she couldn’t be in two places at once, Maddy said. "It’s a parent’s smother-ween rather than a fun Hallo-ween, The problem is everyone is worried about the Holiday Snatcher. We won’t be able to go anywhere alone until they catch her."

"Well, duh. Of course they had to catch her. She’d terrorized the whole town with her kid snatching and now they weren’t even allowed to go out to play. Jengo, who could be a great friend when they were having an adventure, had taken off after Billy, who had already knocked at the house next door.

See ya later, he’d shouted over his shoulder, as he darted off to join his buddy.

Venting her frustration, Candy shouted at Billy. I see you don’t hang back when there’s food involved. It was like she couldn’t help it when she saw him. She taunted Billy whenever the opportunity presented itself. "You only hang back when there might be something sca-a-ry around."

Yeah . . . well . . . I bet I’ve got more candy than you.

Yeah, and more cavities, too. Her mother tweaked her ear and gave her a meaningful shove to get her moving.

Rats. She wanted to stay with them, but when Jengo, Billy, and Maddy veered off in one direction, her mom and Mrs. McAllister, her mom’s friend, took off in the other direction, yakking and laughing . . . ignoring her.

Candy called to them to stop a moment, but Mrs. Mac, that’s what they called her, had her mom’s arm and was no doubt telling her some boring thing of ‘great importance.’ She watched them get farther away through the eye-slits of the zombie mask she’d yanked back in place.

The sound of her own breathing rattling around inside her rubber mask transformed her world into a dark and sinister place. While on one hand, it was nice to get some distance from her mother her heart did summersaults in her chest. From inside her mask, the night grew menacing.

Leaves rustled behind her and she twisted her neck to look. The wind. She tripped on her shoelace. Again? She bent to retie the sorry-excuse-for-wouldn’t-stay-tied-laces with a snort of disgust. What was that?

A small twig snapped. A cat dashed in front of her. She jerked her head toward the dark shapes cast by a porch light up the driveway. A shadow moved. A sudden gust of wind spun leaves into the air at the corner of the nearby house.

She was freaking herself out big time. The wind blew stuff around. That’s what wind did. Big deal. Her fingers fumbled with the laces. A footstep? She stopped breathing and listened. Candy left her shoe untied and raced to catch up with her mom.

Mom? Where’d you go? Mom? She reached the intersection and darted up the street, managing only two long strides before stepping on her untied shoelace. Catapulting face down, she barely caught herself before face hit the cement.

Grr-rr.

A chill ran through her and she pushed to her knees. She knew that sound.

Grr-rr.

Dogs! She tried to scream, but a large hand covered her mouth and nose with a sickly-sweet-smelling cloth.

Chapter Two

The Ghost of a plan

The next night

Jarred awake, Jengo brushed a hand across his now wide-open eyes wondering what woke him. The large red numbers of his digital clock read 4:44. Two disembodied blue eyes stared at him, inches from his face.

Lily! he gasped and then grabbed his pounding chest. For moments, he couldn’t speak. Maybe when you first show up . . . you could hover . . . just a little farther away . . . from my face, that is. You know, just at first.

He loved his ghost, but jeez, sometimes she scared the pants of him, especially when she showed up suddenly nose-to-nose.

His ghost laughed. Just a small chime-like noise, really, but he loved the sound. She didn’t do it often and it always made him smile.

The two blue eyes drifted lower and the semi-transparent body of a young girl emerged to go with them them. She sat cross-legged on the floor as she usually did, with Jengo’s iPad in her lap. He figured she was around his age, about twelve, but she was small and, maybe because he could see mostly through her, she seemed younger.

Climbing down from his bunk bed, Jengo heard the music from his iPad and shook his head. When did you start playing Angry Birds, Lily? I like the Zelda music better.

She didn’t respond. She rarely did, but he’d grown comfortable with that and with her, for that matter.

Lily, however, was not the issue. Candy was. She’d been taken. That was the business at hand. The Holiday Snatcher had her. He was sure of that. Candy had been taken last night on Halloween, another holiday. Jeez. It had happened right after he’s shouted good-by to her. Where was her mom? He should have been with her.

That crazy lunatic is out for revenge because we saved Maddy and those other girls from her last summer, Lily. She practically said as much, in that letter to Candy’s mom, didn’t she?

He made his voice deep and raspy, like the kidnapper’s voice. If those bratty kids don’t stay outta my way I’m snatching your daughter. Mark my words.

That didn’t even get a look from his Ghost. She just kept pulling back the slingshot to launch more stupid birds.

Jeez, that woman is terrifying, but this business of not being allowed out of the house without supervision is driving me and Maddy stark raving mad. Are you listening, Lily? We need some action.

His ghost gave a small gurgle of laughter as bird feathers flew.

Jengo yawned and plunked himself down on the carpet facing her. Why did you wake me at 4:44? You are not even talking to me. You’ll kill me for school. I can’t stay awake. He supported his head with his hands, his elbows on his knees. Dammit. We have to find the Kidnapper. That’s where Candy will be. He rarely swore and never in front of his mom, but the situation warranted it. We had her, Lily. We caught her. How could she have gotten away from the FBI?"

His ghost looked up at him and tilted her head.

Do you think you could find the secret tunnel she escaped through, Lily? I bet there are clues to finding Candy at the farmhouse. He ran his hand through his hair, that was finally longer a crew cut, and shivered. She’s big, Lily . . . especially for a woman . . . and strong. He snorted. And like I said, she’s real scary."

---

Jengo remembered when he first met his ghost last summer when she had mysteriously appeared every night at 3:45. It scared the stuffing out of him, but it turned out she only wanted to play on his iPad. That and it turned out she wanted to catch the woman who had killed her, that was. It was the same woman who had kidnapped his sister, Maddy and now Candy. Jengo shook his head. God! How could the FBI have let her escape?

He looked studied his ghost. Her brown hair fell about shoulder length, just long enough to make a curtain around her face when she played on the iPad. At times, like now, she almost appeared normal and her transparency was practically nonexistent.