Creep Street (12 page)

uick, Mum!' you yell. ‘What are we going to do?'

‘I'm glad you asked, dear,' she says. ‘You should always take your mother's advice.'

You can't believe this! You've got Stacey and her mother behind you and two huge savage dogs in front and your mum wants to have a little chat about how she's always right. Honestly!

‘Mum, would you just get on with it, please?' you ask. ‘After all, you're the one who got us into this mess in the first place.'

‘All right, dear,' she says. She turns to the dogs and in that firm voice she uses when she wants you to clean your room, set the table, or get your baby sister off the roof, she says, ‘Sit.'

There's something about her voice. You've never known anyone able to resist it. But will it work on vicious dogs?

ou take a deep breath. Somehow you've got to face this thing, this terrible frightening sight, on your own. It's just you and the skeleton. ‘Come on,' you tell yourself, ‘don't be such a wimp. The thing is dead, after all. Now, if it was alive, you really would have something to worry about!'

And at that moment the skeleton moves.

You let out a scream, but it doesn't come out quite right. It's more like a death rattle, deep in your throat. You can't believe what you just saw. But there's no doubt about it. The thing definitely moved. Its left arm jerked up about thirty centimetres, as though it were giving a little wave. Then it fell back to the same position.

‘Oh no,' you beg yourself, ‘please don't let this be happening.'

But it is.

You think: ‘OK, I'm not going to panic. I'm just going to step slowly backwards, one step at a time, until I'm out of here. Then I'm going to panic.'

But fear has paralysed you. You're fixed to the spot like you've suddenly become the Statue of Liberty.

Then there's a noise behind you. More trouble? You don't think you can cope with anything more. There's a kind of scratching and crying, then you realise what it is.

‘Bingo!' you cry.

And Bingo comes bursting through the door, panting and woofing and bouncing around like he's on a trampoline. Sure he looks like a cross between a camel and a corgi, sure he's got the IQ of a lobotomised goldfish, sure he's the daggiest dog in the neighbourhood but, right now, you're very very pleased to see him.

Bingo gives you a lick to say hello, but he's too interested in exploring the room to give you much attention. Then something makes his nostrils twitch. He looks up, he looks around, his nose is doing aerobics. Then he sees what it is. It's the skeleton. With one huge bound he leaps straight at it.

‘Bingo,' you yell.

But Bingo takes no notice. He's never seen so many bones in one place in his whole short life. Before you can do anything, he is in among them. Bones are flying everywhere. You're screaming at Bingo to come away, but finally you give up. Whatever bad things are going to happen, they're going to happen now, nothing more you can do about it. But it seems like nothing bad is going to happen. Bingo's lying on the floor, chewing a large leg bone, with a blissful expression on his face.

You stay there for a while, watching. In that time Bingo works his way through a scapula, a clavicle and half the rib cage. Seems like he's taken care of your problem. As you leave quietly he's just starting on the other leg.

Good boy, Bingo!

ell, fine then,' you say, ‘go away then, I don't care. I can look at them myself, I don't need you.'

To your secret pleasure she does stop. You don't really want her to go away. It's more fun exploring when you're with someone else.

‘I was only joking,' you say. ‘Can't you take a joke?'

She shivers. ‘Not round here,' she says. ‘This place gives me the creeps. These graves . . . I wouldn't live here for a million bucks.'

You wish she wouldn't say things like that. It makes you feel very uncomfortable. You try to keep the conversation moving.

‘So what are the graves?' you ask.

‘The people who built this house,' she says. ‘Back in 1889. They were all found dead in their beds one night. No-one knows how they died. And people say that every September 13, on the anniversary of their deaths, their bodies rise from the earth here and walk again.'

‘What?' you gasp. ‘September 13!! That's tonight!'

‘I know. And that's why you won't find any kid from this neighbourhood out of their houses after dark tonight.'

You're so shocked you go to sit down. Then you realise you're about to sit on one of the graves, so you quickly stand up again.

‘I . . . I don't believe you,' you say. ‘I don't believe in ghosts.'

But you look around nervously as you say it.

‘OK,' says Stacey. ‘If you don't believe in ghosts, I'll meet you here at midnight tonight, and we can see if anything happens.'

You look at her in horror. Is she serious? Oh oh, bad news: looks like she is! What are you going to do now?

ou feel you should get out of the car but when you try the handle it seems to be stuck. There's still no sign of Stacey. You're getting worried and, to make things worse, it's all you can do to stay awake. It's getting harder by the minute. You pinch yourself, slap yourself in the face, hit yourself over the head, then start biting and kicking yourself. If you could have kicked yourself in the butt you would have. You don't stop till you've given yourself a black eye, a broken tooth, and a mass of grazes and lacerations. Now you really are awake, no doubt about that. You're hurting badly, but at least you're awake.

You peer through the windscreen, trying to find some clue to what's going on. These days it gets dusk early, and already the light is fading. As you stare you notice for the first time how the murk and dirt on the glass seems to form shapes, the way clouds looked like castles or elephants or sheep, when you were a little kid. Only these shapes don't seem nice and friendly. They seem dark and forbidding. And then you notice they're moving. It's like you're watching a movie. The shapes are getting wilder, like they're out of control. They're swirling around and mixing together and chasing each other. They're black and grey and some of them seem to have patches of red, almost like eyes. And tails, little dark pointy tails, they seem to have them, too. You try to find your voice, to yell at them to go away, to yell for help maybe, but your voice just isn't there: your throat seems blocked, like your tonsils have swollen and filled it. Something flies past you in the car and you grab your own throat in horror. It's like one of these dark little demons has left the windscreen and is loose inside the car! How is this possible? Then there's another, and a third, whizzing silently through the car, zigzagging past you at high speed. You catch a glimpse of little red eyes, mean and narrow, as one of them comes straight at your face and only swerves away at the last moment. Aaaaagghhhhh! This is terrible! What can be happening? What can these horrible things be?

You feel a little pricking sensation in your hand and looking down you see to your terror that one of them has actually landed on your hand! You scream this time: your voice has come back now. You shake your hand to get rid of the foul thing and it zooms up past your face. Desperately you try again to open the door of the car, but it still doesn't work. Your stomach feels like one of these creatures has got inside it and is wriggling around in there: that's how scared you feel. This is the most frightening experience of your life. The worst thing is the terror of not knowing how it will end. The car is full of these ugly little monsters!