Terrors Read Online Free

wrote the story, too. He’d never thought about that before. Comic book stories and radio stories were just
there
, somehow. The stories were there and the pictures were there,the way the sky was just there and the world was just there. You didn’t think about it, or if you did some grownup would say, “God made the sky,” or “God made the world.”
    But Arlie didn’t think that God made
Haunted Adventures
and wrotethe stories in it. Arlie realized with a shock that it wasn’t that way at all. Eduardo del Lobo, Marcus Billingham, Joseph Lester, and Clarissa Norman wrote thestories in
Haunted Adventures
. Somebody drew the pictures in the magazine, too, and somebody made the wonderful picture of the wolf on the cover, and somebody wrote the stories in Arlie’s comic books and drew the pictures there, too, and somebody wrote the stories about Ace Larson Space Explorer and Homicide Sergeant Jack Martin and even the Crimson Wizard that Arlie heard on the radio.
    SuddenlyArlie felt something inside his chest, something that he had never felt before. It was warm and it seemed to be filling him up and almost pushing out of him. He knew something that he hadn’t known before. He didn’t know where it came from but he knew it with all his heart. He blinked and told himself that when he grew up he would not only marry a lady who wore lipstick and smelled like flowerslike his Aunt Mary, he would write stories for
Haunted Adventures
magazine.
    He closed the magazine and waited for his Uncle Mort to come and carry him to the bathroom and then put him in his bed. He waited for a train to come but he didn’t hear a distant whistle or the click of the wheels on the tracks.
    That night he woke up when a train went past. He listened for its whistle and the click ofits wheels. He could tell the exact moment that the locomotive rushed past the apartment house. He imagined himself sitting in the train as it rushed past his house and carried him to the land that the picture on the cover of
Haunted Adventures
showed. He was running through the woods. The big castle rose up, he could see its towers against the bright full moon, and he could hear the rustle ofcreatures in the dark woods and the distant howling of wolves.
    He wondered where the dark woods were. Maybe they were part of the Black Forest and he would hear the sounds of battle. There would be American tanks with big white stars painted on them and Nazi tanks with ugly swastikas and he would see his dad.
    He pushed himself up in his bed.
    The clock said it was after three o’clock in themorning. It must have been cloudy outside. Arlie could see just a little bit around the edges of the window shade and he could see that it was snowing. Inside Arlie’s room it was the darkest he could ever remember.
    He looked at the dark place on his wall and the tunnel was thereand the entrance to it was wide open. Arlie leaned forward and looked into the tunnel as hard as he could.
    He couldsee different colored lights inside. There was a bright yellow light and he could see Tex Wilson and his mighty stallion Pharaoh. There was a dark purple light and he could see Ace Larson Space Explorer and his companion Betty Blanton standing on the surface of the poison planetoid next to their spaceship the
Isis
. There was a blue light and he could see Homicide Detective Jack Martin and thelovely Marguerite Moran; Detective Martin was wounded and he was leaning on the lovely Marguerite Moran who had a gun in her hand and was shooting at a crook. And there was a crimson light, the strongest light of all, a beautiful crimson light and there was the Crimson Wizard and Arlie could see a little under the edge of the Crimson Wizard’s hat and he was almost sure that the Crimson Wizard’s facewas his father’s face.
    The Crimson Wizard was looking right at Arlie. He spoke to Arlie and his voice was a lot like Arlie’s dad’s voice, but it was also a lot like your announcer Larry Thorson. He was gesturing