Scary Stories Complete Set

by Alvin Schwartz

  People started wondering if this “wolf girl” was Mollie Dent’s daughter. Had a mother wolf carried her off the day she was born and raised her with her pups? If so, by now she would be ten or eleven years old.

  As the story is told, some men began to look for the girl. They searched along the riverbanks and in the desert and its canyons. And one day, it is said, they found her, walking in a canyon with a wolf at her side. When the wolf ran off, the girl hid in an opening in one of the canyon walls.

  When the men tried to capture her, she fought back, biting and scratching like an enraged animal. When they finally subdued her, she began screaming like a frightened young girl and howling like a frightened young wolf.

  Her captors bound her with rope, put her across a horse, and took her to a small ranch house in the desert. They would turn her over to the sheriff the next day, they decided. They placed her in an empty room and untied her. Terror-stricken, she hid in the shadows. They left her and locked the door.

  Soon she was screaming and howling again. The men thought they would go mad listening to her, but at last she stopped. When night fell, wolves began howling in the distance. People say that each time they stopped, the girl howled in reply.

  As the story goes, the cries of wolves came from every direction and got closer and closer. Suddenly, as if a signal had been given, wolves attacked the horses and other livestock. The men rushed into the darkness, firing their guns.

  High up in the wall, in the room where they had left the girl, was a small window. A plank was nailed across it. She pulled the plank off, crawled through the window, and disappeared.

  Years passed with no word of the girl. Then one day some men on horseback came around a bend in the Rio Grande not far from Devil’s River. They claimed they saw a young woman with long blond hair feeding two wolf pups.

  When she saw the men, she snatched up the pups and ran into the brush. They rode after her, but she quickly left them behind. They searched and searched, but found no trace of her. That is the last we know of the wolf girl. And it is there, in the desert, near the Rio Grande, that this story ends.

  Five Nightmares

  An artist painted some pictures.

  A boy got a new pet.

  A girl went on vacation.

  Everything was normal.

  Then nothing was.

  The Dream

  Lucy Morgan was an artist. She had spent a week painting in a small country town and decided that the next day she would move on. She would go to a village called Kingston.

  But that night Lucy Morgan had a strange dream. She dreamed that she was walking up a dark, carved staircase and entered a bedroom. It was an ordinary room except for two things. The carpet was made up of large squares that looked like trapdoors. And each of the windows was fastened shut with big nails that stuck up out of the wood.

  In her dream Lucy Morgan went to sleep in that bedroom. During the night a woman with a pale face and black eyes and long black hair came into the room. She leaned over the bed and whispered, “This is an evil place. Flee while you can.” When the woman touched her arm to hurry her along, Lucy Morgan awakened from her dream with a shriek. She lay awake the rest of the night trembling.

  In the morning she told her landlady that she had decided not to go to Kingston after all. “I can’t tell you why,” she said, “but I just can’t bring myself to go there.”

  “Then why don’t you go to Dorset?” the landlady said. “It’s a pretty town, and it isn’t too far.”

  So Lucy Morgan went to Dorset. Someone told her she could find a room in a house at the top of the hill. It was a pleasant-looking house, and the landlady there, a plump, motherly woman, was as nice as could be. “Let’s look at the room,” she said. “I think you will like it.”

  They walked up a dark, carved staircase, like the one in Lucy’s dream. “In these old houses the staircases are all the same,” Lucy thought. But when the landlady opened the door to the bedroom, it was the room in her dream, with the same carpet that looked like trapdoors and the same windows fastened with big nails.

  “This is just a coincidence,” Lucy told herself.

  “How do you like it?” the landlady asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she said.

  “Well, take your time,” the landlady said. “I’ll bring up some tea while you think about it.”

  Lucy sat on the bed staring at the trapdoors and the big nails. Soon there was a knock on the door. “It’s the landlady with tea,” she thought.

  But it wasn’t the landlady. It was the woman with the pale face and the black eyes and the long black hair. Lucy Morgan grabbed her things and fled.

  Sam’s New Pet

  Sam stayed with his grandmother when his parents went to Mexico for their vacation. “We are going to bring you back something nice,” his mother told him. “It will be a surprise.”

  Before they came home, Sam’s parents looked for something Sam would like. All they could find was a beautiful sombrero. It cost too much. But that afternoon, while they were eating their lunch in a park, they decided to buy the sombrero after all. Sam’s father threw what was left of their sandwiches to some stray dogs, and they walked back to the marketplace.

  One of the animals followed them. It was a small, gray creature with short hair, short legs, and a long tail. Wherever they went, it went.

  “Isn’t he cute!” Sam’s mother said. “He must be one of those Mexican Hairless dogs. Sam would love him.”

  “He’s probably somebody’s pet,” Sam’s father said.

  They asked several people if they knew who its owners were, but no one did. They just smiled and shrugged their shoulders. Finally, Sam’s mother said, “Maybe he’s just a stray. Let’s take him home with us. We can give him a good home, and Sam will love him.”

  It is against the law to take a pet across the border, but Sam’s parents hid the animal in a box, and no one saw it. When they got home, they showed it to Sam.

  “He’s a pretty small dog,” said Sam.

  “He’s a Mexican dog,” his father said. “I’m not sure what kind. I think it’s called a Mexican Hairless. We’ll find out. But he’s nice, isn’t he?”

  They gave the new pet some dog food. Then they washed it and brushed it and combed its fur. That night it slept on Sam’s bed. When Sam awakened the next morning, his pet was still there.

  “Mother,” he called, “the dog has a cold.” The animal’s eyes were running, and there was something white around its mouth. Later that morning Sam’s mother took it to a veterinarian.

  “Where did you get him?” the vet asked.

  “In Mexico,” she said. “We think he’s a Mexican Hairless. I was going to ask you about that.”

  “He’s not a Hairless,” the vet said. “He’s not even a dog. He’s a sewer rat—and he has rabies.”

  Maybe You Will Remember

  Mrs. Gibbs and her sixteen-year-old daughter Rosemary arrived in Paris on a hot morning in July. They had been on a vacation and now were returning home. But Mrs. Gibbs did not feel well. So they decided to rest in Paris for a few days before going on.

  The city was crowded with tourists. Still, they found a place to stay at a good hotel. They had a lovely room overlooking a park. It had yellow walls, a blue carpet, and white furniture.

  As soon as they unpacked, Mrs. Gibbs went to bed. She looked so pale that Rosemary asked to have the hotel’s doctor examine her. Rosemary did not speak French, but fortunately the doctor spoke English.

  He took one look at Mrs. Gibbs and said, “Your mother is too sick to travel. Tomorrow I will move her to a hospital, but she needs a certain medicine. If you go to my home for it, it will save time.” The doctor said he did not have a telephone right now. Instead, he would give Rosemary a note for his wife.

  The hotel manager put Rosemary in a taxi and, in French, told the driver how to find the doctor’s house. “It will take only a little while,” he told her, “and the taxi will bring you back.” But as th
e driver slowly drove up one street and down another, it seemed to take forever. At one point Rosemary was sure they had gone down the same street twice.

  It took almost as long for the doctor’s wife to answer the door, then get the medicine ready. As Rosemary sat on a bench in the empty waiting room, she kept thinking, “Why can’t you hurry? Please hurry.” Then she heard a telephone ring somewhere in the house. But the doctor had told her he didn’t have a telephone right now. What was going on?

  They drove back as slowly as they had come, crawling up one street and down another. Rosemary sat in the backseat filled with dread, her mother’s medicine clutched in her hand. Why was everything taking so long?

  She was sure the taxi driver was going in the wrong direction. “Are you going to the right hotel?” she asked. He didn’t answer. She asked again, but still he didn’t reply. When he stopped for a traffic light, she threw open the door and ran from the cab.

  She stopped a woman on the street. The woman did not speak English, but she knew someone who did. Rosemary was right. They had been driving in the wrong direction.

  When she finally got back to the hotel, it was early evening. She went up to the desk clerk who had given them their room. “I’m Rosemary Gibbs,” she said. “My mother and I are in Room 505. May I please have the key?”

  The clerk looked at her closely. “You must be mistaken,” he said. “There is another guest in that room. Are you sure you are in the right hotel?” He turned to help someone else. She waited until he was finished.

  “You gave us that room yourself when we arrived this morning,” she said. “How could you forget?”

  He stared at her as if she had lost her mind. “You must be mistaken,” he said. “I have never seen you before. Are you sure you are in the right hotel?”

  She asked to see the registration card they had filled out when they arrived. “It’s June and Rosemary Gibbs,” she said.

  The clerk looked in the file. “We have no card for you,” he said. “You must be in the wrong hotel.”

  “The hotel doctor will know me,” Rosemary replied. “He examined my mother when we arrived. He sent me for medicine she needs. I want to see him.”

  The doctor came downstairs. “Here is the medicine for my mother,” Rosemary said, holding it out to him. “Your wife gave it to me.”

  “I have never seen you before,” he said. “You must be in the wrong hotel.”

  She asked for the hotel manager who had put her in the taxi. Surely he would remember her. “You must be in the wrong hotel,” he said. “Let me give you a room where you can rest. Then maybe you will remember where you and your mother are staying.”

  “I want to see our room!” Rosemary said, raising her voice. “It’s Room 505.”

  But it was nothing like the room she remembered. It had a double bed, not twin beds. The furniture was black, not white. The carpet was green, not blue. There was someone else’s clothing in the closet. The room she knew had vanished. And so had her mother.

  “This is not the room,” she said. “Where is my mother? What have you done with her?”

  “You are in the wrong hotel,” the manager said patiently, as if he were speaking to a young child.

  Rosemary asked to see the police. “My mother, our things, the room, they have all disappeared,” she told them.

  “Are you sure you are in the right hotel?” they asked.

  She went to her embassy for help. “Are you sure it is the right hotel?” they asked.

  Rosemary thought that she was losing her mind.

  “Why don’t you rest here for a while,” they said. “Then maybe you’ll remember. . .”

  But Rosemary’s problem was not her memory. It was what she did not know. See here.

  The Red Spot

  While Ruth slept, a spider crawled across her face. It stopped for several minutes on her left cheek, then went on its way.

  “What is that red spot on my cheek?” she asked her mother the next morning.

  “It looks like a spider bite,” her mother said. “It will go away. Just don’t scratch it.”

  Soon the small red spot grew into a small red boil. “Look at it now,” Ruth said. “It’s getting bigger. It’s sore.”

  “That sometimes happens,” her mother said. “It’s coming to a head.”

  In a few days the boil was even larger. “Look at it now,” Ruth said. “It hurts and it’s ugly.”

  “We’ll have the doctor look at it,” her mother said. “Maybe it’s infected.” But the doctor could not see Ruth until the next day.

  That night Ruth took a hot bath. As she soaked herself, the boil burst. Out poured a swarm of tiny spiders from the eggs their mother had laid in her cheek.

  No, Thanks

  Thursday nights Jim worked as a stock boy in one of the malls out on the highway. By eight-thirty he was usually finished and he drove home.

  But that night Jim was one of the last to leave. By the time he got out to the huge parking lot, it was almost empty. The only sounds were cars in the distance and his footsteps on the pavement.

  Suddenly a man stepped out of the shadows. “Hey, mister,” he called in a low voice. He held out his right hand. Balanced on the palm was the long, thin blade of a knife.

  Jim stopped.

  “Nice, sharp knife,” the man said softly.

  “Don’t panic,” Jim thought.

  The man stepped toward him.

  “Don’t run,” Jim told himself.

  “Nice, sharp knife,” the man repeated.

  “Give him what he wants,” Jim thought.

  The man came closer. He held the knife up. “Cuts nice and easy,” he said slowly. Jim waited. The man peered into his face. “Hey, man, only three dollars. Two for five. Nice present for your mama.”

  “No, thanks,” Jim said. “She’s got one.” And he ran for his car.

  What Is Going On Here?

  When bottles began popping

  and furniture began flying all over the house,

  there were many explanations,

  but none of them was right.

  Then someone had a scary answer

  that could involve you.

  The Trouble

  The events in this story took place in 1958 in a small white house in a suburb of New York City. The names of the people involved have been changed.

  Monday, February 3. Tom Lombardo and his sister Nancy had just come home from school. Tom was going on thirteen. Nancy was fourteen. They were talking to their mother in the living room when they heard a loud POP! in the kitchen. It sounded like a cork had been pulled from a bottle of champagne.

  But it was nothing like that. The cap on a bottle of starch had somehow come unscrewed, and the bottle had tipped over and spilled. Then bottles all over the house began popping—bottles of nail polish remover, shampoo, bleach, rubbing alcohol, even a bottle of holy water.

  Each had a screw cap that took two or three full turns to open. But each had opened by itself—without any human help—then had fallen over and spilled.

  “What is going on here?” Mrs. Lombardo asked. Nobody knew. But the popping soon stopped and everything went back to normal. It was just one of those crazy things, they decided, and put it out of their minds.

  Thursday, February 6. Just after Tom and Nancy got home from school, six more bottles popped their caps. The next day, at about the same time, another six did.

  Sunday, February 9. At eleven o’clock that morning Tom was in the bathroom brushing his teeth. His father was standing in the doorway talking to him. All of a sudden a bottle of medicine began moving across the vanity by itself and fell into the sink. At the same time a bottle of shampoo moved to the edge of the vanity and crashed to the floor. They watched, spellbound.

  “I’d better call the police,” Mr. Lombardo said. That afternoon a patrolman interviewed the family as bottles popped in the bathroom. The police assigned a detective named Joseph Briggs to the case.

  Detective Briggs was a
practical man. When something moved, he believed that a human or an animal had moved it, or that it moved because of a vibration or the wind or some other natural cause. He did not believe in ghosts.

  When the Lombardos said they had nothing to do with what was going on, he thought that at least one of them was lying. He wanted to examine the house. Then he wanted to talk to some experts and find out what they thought.

  Tuesday, February 11. The bottle of holy water that had opened a week before opened a second time and spilled. Two days later it spilled again.

  Saturday, February 15. Tom, Nancy, and a relative were watching TV in the living room when a small porcelain statue rose up from a table. It flew three feet through the air, then fell to the rug.

  Monday, February 17. A priest blessed the Lombardos’ house to protect it against whatever was causing the trouble.

  Thursday, February 20. While Tom was doing his homework at one end of the dining room table, a sugar bowl at the other end flew into the hall and crashed. Detective Briggs saw it happen. Later a bottle of ink on the table flew into a wall and broke, spattering in all directions. Then another porcelain statue took off. It traveled twelve feet and smashed into a desk.

  Friday, February 21. To get some peace, the Lombardos went to a relative’s house for the weekend. While they were gone, everything at home was normal.

  Sunday, February 23. When the Lombardos returned, another sugar bowl took off. It flew into a wall and smashed to smithereens. Later a heavy bureau in Tom’s room toppled over. But no one was in the room when it happened.

  Monday, February 24. By now Detective Briggs had talked to an engineer, a chemist, a physicist, and others. Some thought that vibrations in the house were causing the trouble. These could come from underground water, they said, or from high-frequency radio waves, or from sonic booms caused by airplanes. Others said that the electrical system was the cause, or downdrafts coming through the chimney. The popping of bottles was blamed on chemicals the bottles contained.