by R. L. Stine
Brad’s eyes shut tightly from the pain. He uttered a short cry that faded as he dropped to the floor. Cory, gasping for air, took a step back, trying to ready himself for Brad’s next onslaught. But it didn’t come. Brad fell heavily onto the floor and didn’t move. He was unconscious.
Before Cory could regain his balance, Anna was in his arms. She threw her arms around him, nearly knocking him over, and pressed her face against his. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you, thank you. I knew you would come. I knew it.”
Cory’s heart was pounding so hard, it felt about to explode. His chest heaved as he struggled to catch his breath. His muscles ached from the strain of the fight, and he began to feel sick to his stomach.
“I knew you would come. I knew it,” Anna repeated, pressing against him.
“We—we’ve got to call the police,” Cory said, trying to back away from her grasp, trying to calm himself, slow his breathing.
“Thank you for saving me. Thank you.” Her breath was hot against his cheek.
He looked down at Brad, still sprawled unconscious on the carpet. ‘’Anna—please. We’ve got to move quickly. Brad won’t be out for long,” Cory pleaded. He wasn’t sure Anna was hearing him. “We’ve got to get you away from here. We’ve got to make sure you’re safe from him.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.” She took his hands and started to pull him toward the stairway in the front hall. “Come with me, Cory. We’re alone now. He can’t bother us.” She kissed his cheek, his forehead. She gave him a devilish look. “Come to my room, Cory. He can’t bother us now.”
“No, Anna—please. We’ve got to call the police,” he insisted. Her eyes were wild, unreal, like big blue buttons. Her face seemed to glow with excitement. “Anna—Brad will wake up soon. We can’t—”
She pulled him up the creaking, uneven stairs. “We have to celebrate, Cory. You and me. Come.” A sexy, inviting smile spread across her face. Her eyes grew even wider, even more opaque.
Cory gave in. He realized he couldn’t resist her. He started to follow her up the stairs.
“I want to show you something, Cory,” she said as they reached the landing.
“What? What is it, Anna?”
“This,” she said. The smile faded instantly from her face. Her eyes narrowed. She reached down to a low table in the narrow hallway and picked something up in her hand.
What was it?
Cory had trouble making it out in the dimly lit hallway.
She held it up. It was a silver letter opener shaped like a dagger, sharp as a dagger, too, from the looks of it.
“Anna—” Cory felt the fear well up in his chest.
“This will take care of Brad,” she said. She plunged it through the air, a practice swing.
“No!” Cory yelled. “I won’t let you.”
“I won’t let anyone stand in my way,” she said. “Not even you.”
She raised the letter opener above her head. She moved toward him, brandishing it like a knife. In the shadowy light her face became hard, frightening, ugly with hate.
“Put that down!” he cried, backing up, confused, not sure this was really happening. Hadn’t he just saved her? Wasn’t she just in his arms thanking him, inviting him up to her room? “Anna, what are you doing? Stop. We have to call the police!”
Her eyes were clear and cold. She didn’t respond, didn’t seem to hear him. She swung the letter opener down fast, trying to stab him in the chest.
Cory leapt backward. The blade missed him by less than an inch.
She lunged forward, raising the blade again, preparing another attack. He backed up, raising his hands to fend her off. “Anna—what are you doing? Anna—please—listen to me!”
His back, he realized, was against an open window. He had no room to move now.
She moved quickly forward, thrusting the silver blade in front of her.
He tried to move back, dodge out of the way.
She lunged at him.
He tried to jump out of the way, lost his balance, and fell back—out the open window.
chapter 23
It was as if it were happening in slow motion. First he felt his feet leave the floor. Then he saw the black sky and felt the shock of the cold night air on his face.
Then he knew he was falling, falling backward, falling down, headfirst.
Instinctively, his legs bent. He caught them around the windowsill. He was a gymnast, after all, he told himself. He had skills. He just had to use them.
He had to use them. Or die.
The backs of his knees hit the windowsill. He clamped his legs tightly and held on. Then he swung himself up, using the strong stomach muscles he had developed through years of practice. He flipped himself up until his head was upright, then slid easily back into the hallway.
Anna hadn’t moved. She stood in the hallway, holding the letter opener in front of her, staring blankly at the window.
Cory did a forward flip across the hallway and kicked the letter opener from her hand.
She shrieked and seemed to come out of her shock. He landed on his feet and stared at her. Her face, which had been expressionless as she stared at the window, filled with anger. With a desperate cry, a wild animal cry of attack, she lunged at him.
Dodging to the side, he grabbed her as she moved past him. He spun her around and pulled her arms behind her back.
“Let me go! Let me go!” she screamed. But she was light and weak, no match for him.
He held her arms firmly behind her back and began to move forward, pushing her to the stairs. She struggled with all of her strength, shrieking and cursing him.
He started to pull her down the stairs when he heard a sound. Looking down, he saw to his horror that Brad had revived.
Brad was coming up the stairs after him.
Cory was trapped.
chapter 24
“Stay away, Brad. Stay away!” Cory heard himself shouting.
He wasn’t making any sense. Why would Brad stay away?
“I warned you,” Brad called up wearily. He was halfway up the stairs.
Anna struggled to free herself, but Cory held on tight. He looked back up to the open window. For a brief moment he considered dropping Anna or tossing her down at Brad, then leaping out the window.
“I tried to frighten you away,” Brad said, climbing toward him slowly, deliberately. “I tried to scare you, to keep you from getting involved with her.”
“Go away, Brad!” Anna screamed.
Brad took another step closer. Anna struggled. Cory tightened his grip.
“I just wanted to keep you safe from her,” Brad said.
“Shut up, Brad! I’ll kill you too!” Anna shrieked.
With a burst of strength she pulled out of Cory’s grasp. She dived for the letter opener. But Cory caught her again and pulled her back.
Brad sat down on the top step and rubbed the back of his head. Cory suddenly realized that Brad had no intention of fighting him.
“Want to know the whole story?” Brad asked Cory. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Shut up, Brad! Shut up!” Anna cried.
“I’ve been telling you the truth. Anna is dead.”
“Shut up shut up shut up!”
“She isn’t Anna. She’s Willa. She’s Anna’s sister.”
Cory was so stunned, he nearly let her go.
“When Anna fell down the stairs and died, Mom and I suspected that it wasn’t an accident, that Willa pushed her,” Brad said, rubbing the bump on his head. “She was always insanely jealous of Anna. Anna had everything. Anna was beautiful. She had a million friends. She got straight A’s without having to study hard. Willa couldn’t compete in any way—and Anna never let her forget it.”
“Shut up, Brad. I mean it—”
“But I couldn’t prove that Willa had killed Anna. And Mom isn’t well. I knew she couldn’t survive losing both her daughters. So I never did anything about Willa.
“After Anna’
s so-called accident, Willa seemed to be okay,” Brad continued, his voice soft and shaky, so soft Cory had to struggle to hear. “But I kept close watch over her. We moved here. I hoped the new surroundings would help us all forget the tragedy of losing Anna. It was a stupid thing to hope for.”
“Shut up, Brad. You’re stupid. You’ve always been stupid!” Willa shrieked, still struggling to free herself from Cory’s grasp.
“Like I said, Willa actually seemed okay once we moved here,” Brad told Cory, ignoring his sister’s outburst. “At least, she acted perfectly normal at home. But when you started coming around, asking for Anna, I began to suspect what Willa was doing. I noticed that she started to dress like Anna. And talk like her. I tried to scare you away, Cory. I did my best to keep you from getting involved with her. I figured out that she was calling herself Anna at school, that she was trying to slip into Anna’s identity.”
“I’m going to kill you!” Willa shrieked, her eyes on the letter opener.
“I knew I should’ve gotten Willa professional help,” Brad said sadly. “But we just couldn’t afford it. I was foolish. I should’ve done something for Willa. Anything.”
“I’m going to kill you too!” Willa screamed. “I’m going to kill you both!”
“I know she’s been making phone calls to you and to that girl who’s your friend. I know she’s been making all kinds of threats, leading you on, forcing you to meet her, drawing you into her web. I guess she can’t help herself.”
“Wait just a minute,” Cory broke in. “I have one little problem with your story, Brad. What about the other night at the dance? That wasn’t Anna—I mean, Willa—who pushed Lisa down the stairs. That was you.”
“I told you that was a mistake,” Brad said heatedly. “I told you in the music room it was all a mistake. I followed Willa to the dance. I figured she was going there to make trouble for you. I wanted to stop her. I waited for her there in the hall. It was dark. I couldn’t see much of anything. I thought it was Willa who was hurrying past me. I made a grab for her. I didn’t really mean to push her, but she fell. Then when I got a good look at her, I realized I had grabbed the wrong girl. I watched to make sure she wasn’t badly hurt. Then I panicked and hid. I didn’t know what to do. I felt terrible about it. I was just trying to protect you from Willa.”
“Anna went to the dance—not Willa. Willa is dead!” Willa broke in. “Stop calling me Willa. I’m not Willa. I’m Anna! I’m Anna! I’m Anna!” She began wailing at the top of her lungs.
Brad stood up and held out his arms. Cory handed Willa over to him. She slumped against Brad, exhausted.
“Call the police,” Brad told Cory. “We’ve got to get her some help.”
chapter 25
“Cory, you’ve eaten half a chocolate cake!”
“Don’t worry. I’ll save you a slice.” He cut himself another large chunk and slid it onto his plate. He’d been starving ever since he’d left the Corwins’ house.
Lisa sat down close to him on the leather den couch and watched him eat. “So that’s the whole story?” she asked.
He swallowed a mouthful of icing. “Yeah. That’s all of it,” he said, suddenly no longer feeling hungry.
“And I was right. About the dead cat and the phone calls—it was all Anna.”
“No. All Willa,” he corrected her. “But yeah. You were right.” He frowned and put the plate on the coffee table. “Another horror story from the folks on Fear Street,” he said bitterly. He felt unsteady, shaky, as if he might burst out screaming—or crying. He stared at the wall, trying to get himself together. He was experiencing so many feelings at once, he couldn’t sort them out.
She put a hand gently on his shoulder. “When it comes to girlfriends, you sure know how to pick ’em,” she said.
He sighed. “Yeah. Maybe from now on I should let you pick them for me.”
Her hand went up to his face. She rubbed the back of her hand tenderly over his cheek. “Maybe I should,” she said softly.
He turned and looked at her. “Got anyone in mind?”
Their faces were inches apart. She moved forward to fill in the inches. She kissed him, a long kiss, a sweet kiss.
“Maybe …” she said.
About the Author
R.L. Stine invented the teen horror genre with Fear Street, the bestselling teen horror series of all time. He also changed the face of children’s publishing with the mega-successful Goosebumps series, which Guinness World Records cites as the Best-Selling Children’s Book Series ever, and went on to become a worldwide multimedia phenomenon. The first two books in his new series Mostly Ghostly, Who Let the Ghosts Out? and Have You Met My Ghoulfriend?, are New York Times bestsellers. He’s thrilled to be writing for teens again in the brand-new Fear Street Nights books.
R.L. Stine has received numerous awards of recognition, including several Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards and Disney Adventures Kids’ Choice Awards, and he has been selected by kids as one of their favorite authors in the National Education Association Read Across America. He lives in New York City with his wife, Jane, and their dog, Nadine.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
prologue
chapter 1
Chapter 2
chapter 3
chapter 4
chapter 5
Chapter 6
chapter 7
chapter 8
Chapter 9
chapter 10
chapter 11
chapter 12
chapter 13
chapter 14
chapter 15
chapter 16
Chapter 17
chapter 18
chapter 19
Chapter 20
chapter 21
chapter 22
chapter 23
chapter 24
chapter 25
About the Author
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