by R. L. Stine
He proved his point. Jennie just hadn’t pushed down hard enough on the handle.
Jake opened the door.
They all tumbled in.
Jennie let out a mild expletive. “It’s dark!” she said.
“Don’t swear in church!” Hank warned.
“There are long matches there for the votive candles . . . and it’s not pitch-dark—look, those little floor lights are on up by the altar,” Liam said.
Jennie lit several of the votive candles. “I’ll bring money later, I promise!” she whispered, looking toward the altar and the cross.
“Should we lock the door now?” Hank asked.
“I thought evil entities couldn’t come into the church,” Liam said.
“Maybe we should to be safe,” Jennie said.
“Honestly? I really don’t think evil entities can enter a church!” Emmy said, looking around nervously. “I mean, I don’t think so.”
“Maybe it’s a rougarou,” Hank said thoughtfully. The rougarou was a famous monster, particular to their area. It came from their distant French heritage and was a monster like a werewolf.
“There’s no rougarou,” Liam said.
They jumped as they heard a sudden, strident sound.
It was only Jennie’s phone. She gasped and then laughed as she answered it. She looked around at them as she said, “Hi, Mom.”
She went very still and silent, listening to what her mother had to say. “Yes, Mom, of course. Um . . .” She paused, looking around at all of them. “We’re actually at the church right now, Mom. It’s all good. Well, you know Jake and his research. . . .”
She listened again.
And then she said, “Love you, Mom,” and hung up.
“What? What? What was that all about?” Jake asked.
“Yes, please, what’s going on?” Emmy demanded.
“Jennie?” Liam asked.
“She’s worried—my mom is worried,” she said.
“Why?” Jake asked.
Jennie looked around at all of them again. “Some guy escaped from Angola State Prison,” she said in a rush. “I guess he was a really bad guy. He was supposed to be maximum security . . . um, on death row. I don’t know what happened—you know Mom, Jake, she gets a little crazy when she’s worried. Anyway, he’s out. Hey, the prison is almost two hours from here, but. . . .”
“Lock the doors!” Emmy said.
“What?” Jake asked, looking confused.
“Lock the doors! Maybe bad entities can’t enter churches, but I’m pretty darned sure that a crazy killer could break in. Oh my Lord! There’s a killer on the loose!” Emmy said. “Jennie, um, is your mom coming to get you? Can she get us all home? Or to a police station? This is scary—really scary.”
“She’s coming, but she had to go to Baton Rouge today. It’s going to take some time for her to get here,” Jennie said. “She said to make sure that it’s all locked up here, and that we should sit tight. She said maybe Hank’s mom or, Emmy, maybe your mom could come get us?”
Liam looked over at his sister. He nodded. “This is real, right? Some guy—some guy who committed a crime bad enough to be on death row—is out there?”
“And a witch!” Emmy murmured.
Liam swung around, looking out of the church. The little night-lights up by the altar were really dim.
The votive candles that they’d lit weren’t bright either.
The moon had risen; it bathed the graveyard in a soft glow.
Liam found himself staring at one of the old vaults. It had the name Windsor sculpted into the stone over the door. The thing was big—had to house nine or ten people. The gates to it opened—meaning that people could go in to leave flowers or tokens, as if it was a regular big, shared mausoleum.
He didn’t know any Windsors. Never had. And he’d never heard of anyone visiting a deceased loved one named Windsor.
Now, as he stared out through the old cut-glass windows of the church, Liam saw something. The moonlight allowed him just a glimpse of something.
Something that seemed like a shadow—growing in the Windsor vault, getting bigger and bigger, darker and darker.
He was scared, of course. They were all scared. They didn’t need to scare themselves or give one another the heebie-jeebies talking about local ghosts and legends.
There was a killer on the loose.
But . . .
He suddenly felt Emmy grip his hand.
She was staring at the tomb as well.
His sister could see what he was seeing.
And for once, she didn’t scream. Maybe, for once, she was actually just a little too scared to scream.
“What is it?” Jake asked.
A gust of wind suddenly seemed to stir through the church.
The candles went out.
Then there was a sizzling sound—and the little night-lights by the altar went out as well.
“What the heck?” Jake murmured.
“A ghost . . . a witch . . . ,” Emmy said, barely forming the words and causing sound to come from her mouth.
“More likely a flesh-and-blood killer,” Liam said. But, he realized, his voice was shaky. He was terrified. He didn’t know what he believed himself.
Something struck one of the windows. Glass shattered.
Emmy screamed.
They all screamed.
And the loudest, worst scream, Liam realized, was coming from himself.
Then, just as they had all screamed, they all fell silent.
The night seemed to be excruciatingly still as they stood in darkness—eased only by the moonlight outside that fell upon tombstones and cherubs and death’s-heads and angels and made them all glow with a weird and translucent light.
They listened.
Hank began to whimper when they heard a banging sound that came from the back of the church.
Then he screamed again—and bolted out the front door.
“Hank!” Jennie shouted.
Then they heard the chuckle from the back of the church. It was deep and rich, the kind of chuckle that made the hair seem to stand up all over Liam’s body. For a moment he was so cold he was afraid he’d crack if he moved, just like an ice sculpture hit by a hammer.
“Children, children, children— Oh, little children, come to me!” came the voice.
He was at the back of the church. Liam was pretty sure that he wasn’t an evil entity from the graveyard; he sounded like a man.
A bad one. A very bad one.
Liam could feel his sister next to him, feel her fear—and he knew she was going to scream. He reached over and clamped his hand on her mouth and drew her down to the floor.
They couldn’t see the man at the back of the church.
He couldn’t see them.
“Don’t scream, don’t scream—please, don’t scream!” Liam whispered. “Emmy, you and Jennie go—you get out, you get down to the parsonage, you make a call, you get the cops up here now!”
“He’ll see us open the door,” Jennie protested
“I won’t leave you,” Emmy told Liam. “I’m supposed to be looking after you!”
“I’ll go!” Jake volunteered quickly. “Jennie and I will get help back to you.”
Liam saw the way Emmy looked at Jake. He wasn’t so sure she was going to have a crush on him when morning came. But that didn’t much matter. Hoping morning did come at all right now seemed to be the right thing!
“Sure, Jake, you go—Emmy and I will run to the back where the vaults and mausoleums are all at weird angles. He can’t run everywhere,” Liam said.
“We’re gone! Good luck, everyone!” Jake said.
He grabbed Jennie’s hand, and they bolted out the door.
“We have to get out too now, down low—down real low!” Liam said.
Emmy nodded, catching his hand. She was shaking so badly he was afraid he wasn’t going to be able to run with her.
But she did just as he said; Jennie and Jake were obviously disappearing
. If the convict at the back of the church had been watching them and counting, he’d know that there were two more kids.
Hopefully, he’d believe that they were still in the church.
Jake and Jennie burst out of the graveyard, running to the left. They’d reach a main street eventually, but they’d have to go through the woods first.
Liam wasn’t sure why they’d gone that way; straight would have led to the road. Heading to the right would have led them through the trees and brush between the graveyard and the house on the hill where Liam and Emmy had so recently come to live. . . .
Liam had Emmy’s hand. He chose to run toward the right.
He bounded over a sarcophagus-like tomb with a memorial to Jonathan Drake, CSA, Civil War, Bradford’s Company B. He nearly tripped on the broken knee of a praying cherub.
“Liam!”
Emmy jerked at his hand and brought him closer to her, behind the giant wings of an angel that looked over a tomb for the veterans of foreign wars.
“What?” he asked in a hushed whisper.
“Behind us—he’s right behind us!” Emmy said.
And she was right. He could hear the footsteps, heard the furtive sound of the man coming after them. Liam barely dared to breathe. He held tight to Emmy’s hand. Neither of them moved; Liam knew Emmy was trying just as hard as him to stay perfectly still.
They saw him then.
He was still in his prison uniform. He was holding something that he tapped silently against his leg. It wasn’t a gun; it was some kind of a stick or a pole.
It was a tire iron, Liam realized.
He was walking, walking on by them. He stopped now and then, and swung around, as if trying to catch them somewhere, catch them off guard.
“Come out, come out, come out and play, children. I know you’re here!” he said.
Liam heard Emmy swallow.
“Shh,” he warned her.
The man kept walking. He was going deeper and deeper into the graveyard—heading in the wrong direction. Any second now, Liam and Emmy could turn . . . and run into the brush and trees and back to their house. By now, even chicken-poop Jake would have figured out that he needed to dial 911, not that Emmy and Liam were keeping the convict busy!
It was time; it was time to move. He squeezed his sister’s hand.
They left the angel. They started to tiptoe down the ragged trail through the graves that led away from the convict.
Quiet, quiet, quiet. . . .
And then, to Liam’s horror, he sneezed.
He and Emmy both froze.
“Aha! There you are, my little darlings, my precious little people! Old Ollie doesn’t want to hurt you now; Old Ollie just wants to play.”
“Run!” Liam told Emmy.
“I’m running!” she promised.
And she was running. Emmy could run. She was really just as good at running as she was at screaming.
But then she tripped. She tripped over the in-ground grave and broken stone of Abraham Moriarty, “born June 5, 1899, departed his earthly coil, May 14, 1978.”
“Emmy!” Liam shouted.
He stopped himself, reaching for her hand. He knew that the convict—Old Ollie, as he’d called himself—was now coming for them at a lope.
Old Ollie could run too, or so it seemed!
“Liam, go, just run!” Emmy said.
“No! Come on, come on, get up!”
“I can’t! My ankle!”
Liam could feel the earth itself pounding as the convict Old Ollie came after them. He’d be on them in just seconds.
But . . .
No matter what, he couldn’t leave Emmy.
“Go!”
“No, you’re my sister.”
“Liam—”
“Don’t get all gushy! Mom and Dad would kill me,” he said.
But Emmy could barely move. It was everything Liam could do just to stagger on, trying to support her weight.
And then Emmy screamed.
It was one of her real-true-most bloodcurdling, horrible screams ever.
Liam stopped and looked ahead.
They’d come to the massive Windsor mausoleum. And the black shadow that had seemed to sit upon it earlier had grown immense.
But as Liam stared ahead—his heart thundering—the shadow seemed to twist and form, grow darker, and then . . .
The shadow descended down to Earth, right in front of them. And the shadow was a woman; she was dressed in black. She had wild black-and-white hair that seemed to flow and move and sweep around her head, as if it were some strange kind of a crown.
She looked at the two of them, beckoning them forward.
“Ohhhh . . . not on your life!” Liam whispered.
Emmy was still; dead still. It almost seemed as if she pressed Liam behind her, and then . . .
Emmy smiled.
“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s all right.”
The woman nodded an acknowledgment to her and went on past them.
The wind picked up; dust and leaves and little branches started to swirl and sweep around on the ground.
The mist became a fog, all wrapped up in that whirl of nature.
Then . . .
Lightning zigzagged across the sky.
Thunder clapped.
Liam groaned. “Of course!” he murmured as he and Emmy turned as one.
The convict—Old Ollie—was no longer coming for them. He stood at a halt, mesmerized, staring at the woman in the long black gown.
She lifted her arm, pointing toward Old Ollie.
He was suddenly lifted off the ground. About ten feet up, he was spun around and around and around.
Liam watched, blinking, amazed.
He heard the sound of sirens. He knew that Jake, Jennie, or Hank had gotten out a call.
Old Ollie spun and spun.
And Old Ollie crashed back to the ground.
As suddenly as it had come, the whirl of the wind was gone. The mist seemed to dissipate.
Liam stood with his sister, beneath the giant wing of a praying angel and before the great iron gates that led to the tomb that read Windsor.
Police were hurrying along the path toward the convict, Old Ollie—and Liam and Emmy.
“Down on your knees, hands behind your back!” one of the policemen shouted.
“Yes, yes!” Old Ollie said, staring at Liam and Emmy, as if they were demons themselves. “Yes, yes! Take me back, take me back, I want my cage!” he shouted.
A tall, attractive policewoman made her way past her partner—who was putting cuffs on Old Ollie—and hurried up to Emmy and Liam.
“Are you two all right?”
“Fine, just fine,” Emmy said.
“You two led him on a merry chase; you survived him,” the policewoman said. “Excellent work!”
Liam and Emmy looked at each other. He knew they were both tempted to explain that the legendary witch of Byron’s Bayou had really saved the day. No matter how Old Ollie might scream and rant and rave, no one was really going to believe him.
A week later Liam walked through the woods on his way to the graveyard. He had a handful of flowers he intended to set around the Windsor mausoleum.
There was no one about, and the graveyard was a little misty, but Liam figured graveyards tended to be creepy just because people didn’t really keep up with them.
They forgot.
They’d forgotten about Elizabeth Windsor.
He’d gotten the real story from his mother; he and Emmy had tried to tell her the truth of what had happened. Of course, between them, their words got more and more garbled as they went.
But their mom had just listened and nodded and hugged them and kissed them and tucked them into bed.
And the next day she’d told them about Elizabeth.
She’d been a healer. She’d grown all kinds of wonderful herbs, and she could help people when their stomachs hurt, and she could put poultices on bites and wounds and scratches. She was beloved—un
til a general who had come in during the Spanish rule had wanted her to come and live with him. He’d been a cruel man, and the people hated him—just as Elizabeth Windsor had hated him.
In the middle of the night, she’d been dragged out of her house, taken before the church, hanged, and then burned to a crisp.
However, the family had always known where to find her remains; sixty years later, when a Windsor had become sheriff of the parish—an American holding by then!—he’d dug up what remained of his great-great-aunt and had her remains placed in the tomb.
People had been seeing her now and then for ages. . . .
Most often, they were afraid!
Liam placed his flowers—violets and roses—around the tomb. He paused in front of it, at the massive iron gates. “Thank you!” he said.
He was just about to head home when he froze, fear slipping into him.
He heard a scream.
A loud, horrible, bloodcurdling scream.
He gasped for breath; it was Emmy. He’d recognize that scream anywhere. . . .
He found energy; found a way to move. He bounded around the Windsor tomb and came to the little area by the giant winged angel.
There was an old concrete bench there, almost as worn as some of the tombstones.
Emmy was on the bench.
The witch—or whatever ghostly remnant it was that remained of Elizabeth Windsor—sat on the bench with her.
Emmy smiled brilliantly at her brother. “Liam! Elizabeth is helping me out here. I’m going to try out for the school video project—I want to play the heroine. She has a lot of screaming to do. Elizabeth thinks I’m really good! See?”
Emmy began to scream again. That horrible icy scream . . .
Liam smiled at Emmy, waved to the witch . . .
And ran.
Bloodstone
by Phil Mathews
“I CAN’T TAKE ANY MORE of this torture! NO MORE!” I screamed.
“Yikes. Are you okay?” an unfamiliar voice said.
“Who said that?” I said, looking around what I thought was my empty bedroom.
“That isn’t torture, that’s homework. You’re fine.”
I looked all over my bedroom but couldn’t see where the voice was coming from. “Where are you?”
“Behind you, but you can’t see me or touch me. It’s against the rules,” an older man’s voice said.
