Norton, Andre - Anthology (14 page)

 
          
 
"I am your nearest neighbor, Miss Tracy
Ann Stuart. I think we should start out being friendly."

 
          
 
It sounded like a threat.
Tracy
's momentary wavering hardened into a
resolve to carry the charade through. "Yes, Miss
Cranshaw
.
I'll look around to see if I can find anything. And I'll ask my parents when
they come home."

 
          
 
"This package," said Miss
Cranshaw
, speaking slowly and distinctly, "has a very
special pet inside. It needs a certain kind of care. If it is not treated
correctly, it can be fatal."

 
          
 
"I'll look for the box,"
Tracy
said, thinking desperately,
Go
away, please!

 
          
 
"I will go now," said Miss
Cranshaw
,
grinning
a knowing grin.
"When you find my little pet, come and tell me immediately. You don't have
much time—perhaps an hour, maybe less. Then it will be too late." She
turned on her heel and went to her car.

 
          
 
Relieved,
Tracy
shut the door and locked it. But as she
turned, her eye caught the jumble of box and wrappings lying exactly where
light from the opened door would fall upon it.

 
          
 
Had Miss
Cranshaw
seen it?

 
          
 
If so, she knew now that
Tracy
had opened her box. Maybe that's why she
had given her a time limit to restore the contents—or suffer dreadful witch
consequences!

           
 
Tracy
had to find that horrible thing, box it up,
then
tell Miss
Cranshaw
she
found it near the back door. She would search hard all over for it, now, before
her parents came home.

 
          
 
Once more a shadow fluttered in a corner of
the living room, a larger one this time. Maybe a cat had gotten into the house.
And if it found that dried-up "pet" and tore it to pieces . . .

 
          
 
Tracy
had plenty of experience with other
people's cats.
"Here, kitty!"
She pulled out
the easy chair.

 
          
 
Gazing into evil red eyes,
Tracy
froze. The creature was no longer a
dehydrated husk. It was fleshed out to five times the original size. The fists
clasped and unclasped, the dreadful bulbous nose wriggled, and down in its
throat was a rattle and a hiss.

 
          
 
It was alive!

 
          
 
Tracy
screamed. She tore into the kitchen,
slamming the door behind her.

 
          
 
When she stopped shaking, she forced herself
to think. She did not understand about the witch's pet coming alive, but she
knew she had to deal with it. If she could just think of that wretched monster
as a dreadful kind of cat, she could manage it.

 
          
 
Armed with a broom and the strongest carton
she could find,
Tracy
quietly sidled out of the kitchen, sneaked down the long dark hall past
the basement door, and slipped into the living room.

 
          
 
Grimly she advanced on the easy chair corner,
but she found it empty. Wedging the box at one end of the space behind the
nearby sofa,
Tracy
shoved the broom down along the wall toward it. She met with nothing.

 
          
 
Something snuffled behind her.

 
          
 
The creature, a yard tall, was standing on
hind legs in the doorway to the dining room.
Tracy
felt her insides dissolve into ice water.

           
 
The monster took a step toward her, hissing.

 
          
 
Tracy
panicked. Stifling her sobs, she sped
upstairs to her room, locked herself in, and cowered behind the door.

 
          
 
The hideous thing was growing. Something—maybe
light—had started it, and now it was getting bigger.

 
          
 
She went to her window and looked down to the
concrete walk two stories below. There was no way down, nothing to climb on.
She could not jump without risking broken bones. The only way out of the house
was to go downstairs. She would try to leave through the kitchen.

 
          
 
Tracy
listened
a long
while, but if the monster were prowling downstairs, she could not hear it.

 
          
 
One fast dash—

 
          
 
Tracy
reached the downstairs hall at running
speed. At the bottom she leaped toward the kitchen.

 
          
 
Suddenly the creature reared up in front of
her, tall and dreadful, arms poised as if to catch her. Shocked,
Tracy
sagged against the basement door. Then
quickly she jerked it open and all but fell down the steps.

 
          
 
She blundered into shadowed dead ends and
sections of wall, for this old basement was divided into many odd rooms. At
last, in a far corner, she
thrust open
a door,
stumbled through, and slammed it behind her. Her fingers encountered a snap
lock, and she clicked it shut.

 
          
 
Tracy
blinked in the gloom, for the dusty window
set high in the wall was on the shady side of the house. She made out some old
mason jars on gritty shelves. One of the long boards was loose, and she managed
to wedge it behind some big bent nails on either side of the door, barring it
against the monster, whose strength must be growing as its size increased.

 
          
 
It was not long before
Tracy
heard the creature moving around in the
basement. The monster snuffled through the different sections, came to the
fruit cellar door and scratched, then went away to search elsewhere.

           
 
The sun had nearly set. Surely her parents
would soon come home! Then she remembered that as they left that morning her
mother had said, "Since this is our last trip back and we have so much to
do, Tracy, you're not to worry if we don't return before night/' Not to worry!
All
Tracy
had done was let loose a horror in their
home.

 
          
 
A strong weight thudded against the door, and
the crack of splintering wood was like a knife of fear through her heart.
Somehow, by sound or smell or increased sharpening of its growing senses, the
monster had found her!

 
          
 
Tracy
scrambled up the shelves under the window,
but the frame was nailed shut. Then her fingers gripped a piece of old pipe.
Though she smashed the glass, the sound was lost under the crashing of the
door. Pounding out the jagged

edges
,
Tracy
squeezed through, sobbing as the glass
scratched through her clothing. But she was free!

 
          
 
She hurtled through the dark underbrush
separating the house from the
Cranshaw
place, and she
warded off small branches that raked her as she plunged past. Then she fell
with a painful thump into a dark hollow.

 
          
 
Tracy
lay, waiting for her breath to come back.
Bushes crackled above the hollow, and she heard the unmistakable snuffling of
the dreadful beast. She closed her eyes, frozen with fear, waiting.

 
          
 
The crackling and the snuffling slowly went
away.

           
 
Tracy
squeezed her eyes tighter and concentrated
on listening. At last she was convinced that the monster was really gone.

 
          
 
Tracy
crawled up to the lip of the hollow. Not
far from her a light from the
Cranshaw
place shone
down a smooth woods path.
Tracy
sprang up and ran down the path, throwing herself at the door. Pounding
on it, she cried, "Miss
Cranshaw
! Let me
in!"

 
          
 
The door opened and she fell into Miss
Cranshaw's
arms.
Tracy
sobbed out her confession. "I opened
the box, Miss
Cranshaw
, and the thing inside, the
monster—"

 
          
 
"Hush, child! Come in." The old
lady, surprisingly strong, pulled
Tracy
inside and turned the key. "So, you
let loose something you did not know how to control."

 
          
 
"It's after me, Miss
Cranshaw
,"
Tracy
babbled. "You can stop it. You're a
witch. Save me!"

 
          
 
Miss
Cranshaw
grinned
her dreadful knowing grin, and shook her head.
"It's too late, Miss Tracy Ann Stuart. An hour after light falls upon
it—"

 
          
 
"It's not too late, Miss
Cranshaw
!"
Tracy
's arm hurt where the old lady clutched it.
"The monster's alive. It's growing bigger all the time!"

 
          
 
"That's right," Miss
Cranshaw
said firmly, pulling
Tracy
to a door in the wall. "While small,
it did not matter. But now it's too late, my dear, because it is a full-sized
monster—and you know." She thrust
Tracy
into a dimly lighted room and locked the
door.

 
          
 
Tracy
hammered on the door. "Miss
Cranshaw
, don't lock me up! I didn't mean—"