Nightmares! the Sleepwalker Tonic by Jason Segel

Author:Jason Segel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2015-09-07T16:00:00+00:00

“Hey!” whispered Alfie. “Wake up, Charlie. I think someone’s outside!”

The Dumpster lid popped open, and the golden light of the setting sun washed over Charlie. When his eyes adjusted, he could see the cadaver-white face of a deranged clown hovering over them. Its leering smile stretched from ear to ear, and red diamonds framed its crazed eyes. Charlie managed to clap a hand over Alfie’s mouth before the kid could scream.

“Get your hand off my mouth!” Alfie ordered in a muffled voice. “I know it’s just Dabney!”

“Sorry, boys!” the clown said softly. “I didn’t intend to scare anyone. You two can get out now. The Walkers have disappeared. The Shopkeeper must have called off the search.”

Charlie and Alfie cautiously climbed out of the Dumpster. The Piggly Wiggly parking lot was eerily deserted.

“What happened to your costume?” Charlie asked. “Weren’t you supposed to stay disguised as a human?” He couldn’t pull his eyes away from Dabney’s clown suit. He had never been able to figure out why anyone would ever be amused by the sight of a grown man in a white jumpsuit with pom-pom buttons.

“I figured the Walkers would be looking for a man, not a clown,” Dabney explained. “So I took off my disguise before I came back to Orville Falls.”

Charlie followed the logic, but he wasn’t sure it was the best idea. Getting Dabney back into Cypress Creek was going to be tricky. “And where’s Bruce?”

“In the Netherworld,” Dabney said. “He took one of the bottles of Tranquility Tonic to Medusa. He left the other bottle in the purple mansion for Charlotte.”

“Bruce went back to the Netherworld?”

“Yes,” Dabney confirmed. “I took him to the mansion, and then I came back here to get you.”

“But how did Bruce get through the portal?” Charlie asked. Neither he nor Jack had been there to open it.

Dabney shrugged. “Is there meant to be a trick to it? Bruce just walked right through. I saw the whole thing.”

Charlie couldn’t believe it. There were only two possible explanations. Either he’d left the portal open by accident, or Jack had left Paige alone and returned to Cypress Creek.

“You better take Alfie home before his mom sends out a SWAT team to search for him,” Charlie told Dabney. “I’m going to check up on Paige.”

“By yourself?” Dabney asked.

“Are you nuts?” Alfie asked.

“I don’t think so,” Charlie told them. But if he’d been perfectly honest, he would have admitted that he wasn’t quite so sure anymore.

—

The sun set quickly, and once it disappeared behind the mountains, Orville Falls was strangely dark. The streetlights were out, and the windows in the buildings that lined the main road remained unlit. It seemed every lightbulb in town had been removed and piled into one of the storage shacks outside the Shopkeeper’s castle. In the gloom, Charlie could see the dark silhouettes of rats scampering from building to building, feasting on whatever goodies the owners had left behind. Passing a pastry shop, he heard a commotion inside and paused to peek through the window.

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