The Most Frightening Story Ever Told (2 page)

Billy left the library and walked around the corner onto Hitchcock High Street. As usual, High Street was busy with cars and pedestrians, and a large dog growled fiercely at him for no good reason, all of which made Billy feel very nervous. While Billy liked dogs, they just didn't seem to like him. Cats were even worse. So he quickened his step as best he could until he was standing outside the shop.

Billy didn't need to see the sign hanging from a gallows beside the front door to know that he was in the right place. The paint on the doors and the window frames was as black as a spider. The glass was covered with fake cobwebs of the kind that you can spray on your grandmother while she's asleep in a chair. In the window itself there was a sun-lounger, upon which lay an adult skeleton, dressed for the beach, who appeared to be reading a book called
Shadow of a Dead Man.
Beside the sun-lounger was a large heap of books that looked like they were waiting to be read by the skeleton. These included
The Phantom of Foggy Bottom,
The Word of Death,
Résumé for a Vampire,
A Dark and Stormy Night,
The Revenge of the House Wraith,
A Cackle in the Dark
and
Creaking on My Stairs.
Immediately behind the skeleton's skull was a ghost—or at least a bedsheet that had been painted to look like a ghost. But the most exciting thing about the window display was a large mirror in which the face of a very frightening-looking witch appeared and then disappeared, every few seconds.

Billy thought it the most wonderful window display he had ever seen and clapped his hands and cried out with delight so that several other people who were passing the shop looked at him strangely, as if there was something wrong with him, and then moved swiftly away.

Grinning like a madman, Billy opened the shop door.

Now, some shop doors have a little bell that rings when you open them. The Haunted House of Books was a shop that had something very different—a hollow, wicked laugh, like something from an old horror movie. Not only that, but when you walked in the doorway, you stepped onto an old subway grating and a current of cold air came gusting up from below the floor. All of this was meant to give someone entering the bookshop a bit of a fright. And Billy was no exception. He yelled out loud and then he chuckled as he saw the funny side of what had happened.

The inside of the shop was no less interesting than the window.

Billy Shivers found himself standing in what looked like an old mansion. There was a hall with a dusty chandelier, a grand piano, a big, curving wooden staircase and at the foot of the staircase, a polished wooden desk that was the shape of a coffin lid. On top of this sat a crank-operated steampunk cash register that was made of brass. Billy thought the cash register looked as if it belonged on an old submarine in a book by Jules Verne called
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

The register seemed no less ancient than the extraordinary-looking man standing behind it. Indeed it seemed to Billy that the man was the most extraordinary-looking person he'd ever seen.

The man was a little stout but not stout enough to look fat.

His clothes were those of an old-fashioned undertaker: a long black tailcoat, black trousers, a white shirt and a black bootlace tie.

He was very old—almost sixty—and not very tall, but not very short either.

He had longish gray hair that he wore in a ponytail at the back of his head and a silvery beard and a mustache that matched the laugh lines on his face exactly, and framed his mouth like an extra set of jaws. And one of his eyebrows was arched like the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

On his stubby fingers were several skull-shaped silver rings and in his ear was a ring and on the ring was a tiny dagger and on the sharp tip of the dagger was a tiny spot of red paint as if the dagger had stabbed someone very small indeed.

He wore thick-framed glasses with peculiar yellowish glass that seemed to magnify the curious gleam that seemed to stay permanently in the white of his eyes. Billy was sure he had never seen eyes as gleaming as these. Nor indeed a smile that was quite so white, or wolfish. The man's smile was so white and wolfish that for a moment Billy wondered if he had fangs and if the man might be a vampire. And yet the smile was not unfriendly. Mischievous, yes, a little weary, maybe, but not at all hostile.

“Can I help you?” the man asked politely.

His voice was deep and resonant like a baritone in a coal mine.

Nervously, Billy approached the coffin-shaped counter. His mother had told him never to speak to strangers, but that just didn't seem to work when you were in a shop and someone who very likely worked there asked if they could help you.

“I was looking for a book about ghosts,” he said.

The man sighed and pointed at a sign on the left side of the cash register. It read:

Valued customer: You are in the Haunted House of Books.
This means
haunted as in ghost, dummy.
As in things that go bump in the night. That means we do not sell any books about computers, travel, music, theater, self-help, celebrities.
If you just asked or were planning to ask for a book about any celebrity, get a life! Nor do we sell books about the Second World War, television, geography, religion, cooking
or, God forbid, sports. If you just asked or were planning to ask for a book about sports, you must be a card-carrying moron. Go away and see if you can find your brain before it gets dark, you pathetic fool. We sell creepy books for people who want to get scared quick. That means books about ghosts, ghouls, wraiths, spirits, apparitions, vampires, werewolves, zombies, witches and hauntings.
We also have a large selection for kids. Is that very clear?

“Er, yes,” said Billy. “Very clear. Yes. Thanks. Er, what's a ghoul?”

“A grave-robber,” said the man behind the coffin-shaped counter. “Someone who takes bodies from graves and sells them or eats them. For my money, eating them is harder to understand than selling them. Never did like the taste of human flesh all that much. Anyway, ghouls are up the wooden staircase, turn left, end room, last shelf.”

“Who would want to buy a dead body?” said Billy.

“There used to be quite a trade in the sale of dead bodies, in a place called Edinburgh.”

“Then I'm certainly never going to Edinburgh,” said Billy.

“I'll be sure to write and tell them that before I do anything else today,” said the man. “I assume they'll want to tell the bad news to the people of Scotland as soon as possible.”

“Thank you,” said Billy.

“Don't mention it.”

Noticing a badge on the man's lapel, Billy leaned forward to read it. It read:
REXFORD E. RAPSCALLION, PROPRIETOR
.

“Proprietor,” said Billy. “That means you're the owner, right?”

The man Billy now knew to be Rexford Rapscallion sighed and pointed to a sign on the right-hand side of the cash register. This one read as follows:

Valued customer: Congratulations! Pat yourself on the back because you're not nearly as dumb as you look. Yes, I'm the proprietor and that does mean that I'm the owner. And before you inquire, I started the shop myself, almost twenty years ago. Great idea, huh? And no, there didn't used to be a restaurant here. It was a coffeehouse but the coffee tasted like mud which is probably why they closed and sold the place to me for
a lot of
money I wish I still had. And yes we have always specialized in selling books about ghosts etc. And, since you ask, the place really is haunted. By a ghost. I've not seen the ghost myself but people who have say you can sometimes see it in the voodoo section. But I wouldn't read anything into that.
But it is supposed to be pretty scary so just remember. You've been warned. The management accepts no responsibility for anyone who dies of fright on these premises. If you are at all the nervous type about ghosts—what on earth are you doing in this shop anyway?!! Are you crazy? Thank you for your kind attention.

Billy nodded. “Don't mention it,” he said. “Why is the counter shaped like a coffin?”

Mr. Rapscallion flinched irritably. “It gives the place atmosphere, kid. It makes it feel haunted, you know? Like all the other stuff. The skeleton in the window. The laugh when you come through the door. And all the other stuff.”

“What other stuff?” asked Billy.

Mr. Rapscallion smiled a particularly wolfish smile that Billy thought was just a bit frightening, raised the arch in his already arched eyebrow and said, with a really bright gleam in his eye, “Now that would be telling, wouldn't it? You'll just have to find out for yourself, sonny. The hard way.”

And then Mr. Rapscallion laughed. No ordinary laugh this. But a mad sort of laugh that just took flight out of nowhere, like a big flapping bird that a dog has scared out of a bush. A crazy, loud hyena laugh that kept rolling on and on, like a tire bouncing down a hill. A cackling, crying, out-of-control, never-ending sort of laugh that echoed all through the shop like a water faucet that couldn't be turned off.

It was a laugh like no other laugh Billy had ever heard. Nor ever imagined was humanly possible. It was a laugh that made Billy want to laugh himself and, at the same time, it was a laugh that made him want to run away.

“Which way to the Ghost Section?” Billy asked, bravely.

Mr. Rapscallion's peculiar couldn't-quite-help-it, loony laugh ended as abruptly as it had begun.

“The Children's Section is just around the corner,” he said. “I think you'll find what you're looking for in there.”

“I'm twelve,” said Billy. “I'm a little old for a Children's Section, thank you.”

“If you say so. But don't say you weren't warned, kid. The last thing I want is your mother in here later on threatening to sue me because I was cruel to her crybaby son.”

“If you knew my mother, you'd know that just couldn't happen.”

Mr. Rapscallion shrugged.

“The Ghost Section is up the wooden stairs, turn right. Through Vampires and Voodoo, up the shaky spiral staircase—don't worry, it's safer than it looks or feels—along the very long hotel hallway, beyond the Red Room—don't spend the night there unless you have to—and you'll see it right in front of you. Maybe.”

Billy nodded and started to walk toward the main staircase.

“If you need any help,” said Mr. Rapscallion, his eyes rolling wildly around his head like two marbles, and his voice dying to a whisper, “just scream.”

And then he started to laugh once more.

The Haunted House of Books was much larger than Billy had expected. And much more fantastic than ever he had imagined. The floors creaked under his feet like the timbers on an old ship, and somewhere, from behind one of the walls, he was almost sure that he could hear the muffled sound of someone moaning or muttering or moaning
and
muttering—it was hard to tell one from the other.

Billy wasn't at all surprised to have learned from Mr. Rapscallion that there really was a ghost in the bookshop. A couple of times Billy thought he saw a ghost and he was more than a little relieved when these turned out to be other customers. One of these customers was a tall man in a black coat browsing in the Vampires and Voodoo Section. Billy was certain the tall man wasn't a ghost because while he was reading, he kept on scratching his head and, since Billy could hear the sound of the man's head being scratched and even see the dandruff flaking off his head, he thought it unlikely that the man could be anything other than solid. Anything solid seemed less than ghostly.

The other customer he saw was a thin woman with braided black hair and a dark green leather coat who Billy found staring uncertainly up the spiral staircase.

“Do you think it's safe?” she asked Billy. “To go up?”

Billy thought it wasn't very likely a real ghost would have been worried about going up a spiral staircase. A genuine ghost would surely have just floated up the stairs like a cloud without a care in the world.

“Yes,” he said. “I think it's probably all right. At least, that's what Mr. Rapscallion told me just a few moments ago. He said it's safer than it looks or feels.”

He started to climb the spiral staircase, watched by the woman in the green leather coat. It shifted a bit but no more than a tall ladder leaning against a building.

“Do be careful,” she said, biting her fingernail anxiously.

Biting her fingernail was another thing Billy thought a ghost probably wouldn't have done.

“It's okay, really,” he said. But a bit farther up, the staircase started to shift as if it wasn't secured properly to the walls and the floor, which was a little alarming, and, worried that the thing would collapse underneath him, Billy felt obliged to quicken his steps to reach the top.

“I think you must be braver than me,” said the woman, and walked away.

“No,” Billy called after her. “I'm not brave at all.”

Turning around, Billy found himself at one end of a long carpeted hallway that seemed like a very ordinary hallway for a haunted house of books. A child—much younger than him—had left a tricycle in a corner and Billy thought this did nothing at all for the ghostly atmosphere that Mr. Rapscallion had talked about. Nor did the life-size waxwork of twin girls he found at the end of the hallway after he turned the next corner. Both the girls were about the same age as Billy. They were wearing pretty blue dresses and holding hands and looked very much as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths.

That was just weird, thought Billy. And not at all frightening.

Pushing open the red door of the Red Room, he went inside and found it to be a much larger room than he had imagined. The Red Room was at least as big as a tennis court. There were many bookshelves containing thousands of books. To Billy's delight, all of the books were about ghosts. For several minutes he did nothing but look at the spines of the books. And almost half an hour had gone by before Billy noticed that there was nothing beyond the Red Room, as Mr. Rapscallion had said. Even more puzzling than this, however, was the discovery that the doorway by which he had entered the Red Room had disappeared. He was now enclosed on all four sides by bookshelves and nothing but bookshelves. Obviously there was a secret door in the shelves, but as to which wall of books this was in and how it was to be opened Billy hadn't the first clue. And for several minutes afterward, he just stood there in the center of the Red Room, looking in one direction and then another, and then another.

Billy supposed the Red Room was called the Red Room because the carpet and the ceiling and all of the bookshelves were the color red. About the only things that weren't red were the books and Billy himself. The room was lit by seven candles, which struck Billy as a little dangerous in a bookshop. But the candles created some strange shadows in the room and made it seem a bit more creepy.

Especially when one of the candles in a sconce on the wall blew out.

And then another.

Billy picked up one of the candles that were still lit and went to light the two candles that had gone out. But as he did so, two more candles went out, as if an invisible finger and thumb had nipped their wicks.

“That's a bit odd,” Billy said to himself, turning to light these as well. Almost immediately the flames on another two candles were extinguished and the darkness seemed to take several large steps toward Billy himself.

The boy gulped loudly.

“What's going on?” he said, with a strange high note of panic entering into his already high voice. “I want these candles to stay lit.” With a shaking hand, he leaped from one snuffed-out candle to another and, for a moment, he successfully managed to keep all seven lit.

But then four candles went out at once and Billy heard himself cry out with terror as the darkness seemed to gain on him. “Yikes. This is getting kind of creepy.”

Worse was to follow. In his haste to reach one of the unlit candles, the flame upon the candle in his trembling fingers seemed to drag against the air, and then went out. Billy gulped again, dropped the dead candle onto the carpet and reached for one of the two that were still lit—even as this new candle flickered and died in a little wisp of wraith-like smoke.

Horrified, Billy bent down to pick up the candle from the floor and turned to face the last remaining lit candle. Just as he raised it to the only candle that stood between him and complete and total darkness, this last candle went out as well.

Darkness surrounded the boy like a thick envelope. It was as if someone had picked him up and dropped him into a deep bag made of black velvet and then tied it tight before throwing the bag into a hole.

Then he heard the floorboards creak. He tried to tell himself that these were probably creaking under his own very nervous weight. But it was only too easy to imagine that he wasn't alone in the Red Room. That someone or something was in there with him. And trying to scare him, too.

“Is someone there?” he asked, hoping very much that someone or something didn't answer. “Because if there is, I think it's in very poor taste to frighten another person like this. Even if this is the Haunted House of Books.”

The floorboards creaked again, in a sinister sort of way.

Somehow Billy managed not to lose control, hoping that as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he might eventually see something. But the darkness remained as black as pitch. Indeed, the darkness seemed to intensify. It was almost as if the darkness surrounding him was becoming thick enough to feel. All he could hear was the sound of his own breathing and he could feel the hair lifting off his scalp and standing on end as if it had been trying to reach up and touch the ceiling.

Fear took hold of Billy like a clammy, cold hand.

And for no good reason he could think of, except that Mr. Rapscallion had suggested it in case he needed help, Billy began to scream.