Scream and Scream Again!

  Maybe he’s searching frantically for some way to call for help? If so, he’s too late. The townspeople stumble forward like zombies, glassy-eyed and practically drooling. They’re led by the butcher, whose cleaver glitters in the moonlight. And those stains on his apron . . . I guess I know what those are now.

  “Will?” I cry, finding my voice. He’s still rummaging around in the front seat. The old man reaches for my arm. I haven’t quite regained my balance, and my knees are wobbly, but I try to pull back. I dare to glance at Ripper, who crouches, wide-eyed, by the freezers. “Don’t move!” I warn him. I have to protect my little brother for as long as possible. Then I call again, “Will, help me!”

  He doesn’t answer. Or, if he does, I don’t hear him over the roar of the engine, which rumbles to life. The song begins to play. “I scream . . . you scream . . .”

  And I do. I scream at the top of my lungs when the old man grasps my wrist with his free hand, tugging on me—just as Will, who has never driven anything in his life, as far as I know—presses down on the gas pedal. The truck lurches a few feet forward, and I lurch too, then try to pull back. But the little man has a strong grip. I’m not going to escape. Will and Ripper can, though.

  “Just drive!” I yell at Will. “Go!”

  I look away from the butcher long enough to see Will twist around in the seat, trying to figure out what to do. Some of the townspeople head to the front of the truck, like they’re ready to block us. I can hear them muttering, and through the windshield, I see their shadowy figures moving to surround us.

  “Go!” I urge Will again, even as I try one last time to twist free of the old man’s grasp. I use every ounce of my strength to pull backward, and manage to drag him halfway into the truck.

  I can’t hold him for long, and he opens his mouth to laugh at me—then his eyes grow wide with surprise, his lips form an O, and he screams. In pain. Because Ripper has sprung up like an angry dog and sunk his teeth into the butcher’s wrist. In a split second—probably for just a split second—I’m free.

  “Drive!” I holler at Will. I grab Ripper and pull him back with me. We both fall against the freezers. “DRIVE!”

  My parents never believed what I told them about that night. Not even when they saw the I Scream truck, banged up and parked on our front lawn. My family is only moving out of town now because my mom and dad are ashamed that Ripper and I had been accessories to a vehicle theft.

  Will hadn’t been lying when he’d boasted about being able to steal a car. Like I’d suspected, he didn’t know much about driving, though. We’d had a few minor accidents on the way to my house, where we’d tumbled out of the still-running truck and run inside to tell my parents the whole tale. They’d called the cops—not to save us from killer townsfolk, but to turn us in and teach us a lesson. But by the time the police arrived, the I Scream truck had vanished.

  “Ripper, you okay?” I quietly ask my little brother, who sits in the back seat of our packed-up station wagon, staring out the window as we drive out of town. Forever, I hope. He can’t corroborate my story, because he hasn’t talked since that night. Maybe that’s okay. As more days pass, I find it harder and harder to believe that our neighbors actually planned to eat us. I’ve almost convinced myself that the whole thing was a big prank.

  Smiling, I shake Ripper’s arm, trying to coax him back to normal. “Are you ever gonna say a word again?”

  Ripper doesn’t even look at me. He just keeps staring out the window. Then, just as we pass the awful spot where the I Scream truck used to be parked, leaving Nightingale Corners behind us, my little brother raises his hand, points his finger—and screams bloody murder.

  “AAAAAAHHH!”

  I spin around in my seat, expecting to see the truck parked in the clearing.

  But it’s not there.

  All I see is the wooden sign, which is rattling in the breeze caused by our passing car. The gust of wind also sweeps aside the bushes, so for just a split second I can read every word.

  “Welcome to Nightingale Corners! Home of America’s Only Cannibal Feast!”

  The Witch of Byron’s Bayou

  by Heather Graham

  A BLOODCURDLING SCREAM CAUSED LIAM MCCARTHY to jump—even though he knew it was just his sister, Emmy, who was doing the screaming.

  And Emmy screamed over anything—absolutely anything—and everything. She’d probably seen a spider; there were a few of them out here in the old house.

  Liam told himself he should try to be patient with her. Emmy wasn’t doing so well with the move. While their mom said it was the best thing in the world for them, Emmy obviously didn’t agree. She was being such a . . .

  Well, he knew what he was thinking was something he wasn’t supposed to be thinking. It just wasn’t “politically correct” and all, but honestly!

  She was being such a girl.

  Emmy screamed again

  Liam left his perch on his bed in the garret room up in the attic he had claimed for himself and ran down the stairs.

  There was Emmy, just standing in the middle of the parlor—screaming.

  “What?” he demanded. “What?” He didn’t see a darned thing.

  She turned to him, pointing at the fireplace, shaking. “I saw . . . I saw her! She was right there. Right there! Like, clear as day. The witch. The old witch of the bayou they talk about! She was there, right there.”

  Liam inhaled and exhaled, still staring at his sister with surprise.

  No, she hadn’t wanted to make the move, but. . . .

  Money. Money was tough for their little family right now. Their dad had just been deployed and talking to him was hard; he was in the Middle East somewhere, and even he didn’t know where he was going to be day to day. Only one thing was for sure: he was off fighting and wouldn’t be home for a very long time. The store where their mom had been working in the city had closed down, but when they’d been out to the bayou for Auntie Kate’s funeral, Missy Dandridge at the Pink Partridge had told their mom, Carrie McCarthy, that she could have a job there anytime, and it might be a really good thing if she came home, anyway. Auntie Kate was gone; the old plantation house on the hill belonged to Carrie and her family now—it would be a great place for the McCarthys to live until Brendan came home from his military service for good. And they might just like it out in the tiny town of Byron.

  “This place is freaky and scary and terrifying! And I won’t stay here!” Emmy insisted.

  “You’re not going to freak me out,” Liam told his sister. “I think the stories about the witch of the bayou are pretty cool. She just tried to help people. Some creepy old dude killed her because she didn’t want anything to do with him.”

  Liam hadn’t had the least problem with the move. They weren’t more than twenty miles from New Orleans, and everything he knew about Byron’s Bayou was darned cool. The pirates had used the waterways and lived and counted treasure on some of the high ground here. Civil War soldiers had fought and died on the battlefields by the Mississippi River, and the graveyards were full of cool, old vaults and mausoleums and such. The old trees were so tall and strong they broke through gravestones; and at night, and especially when fog rolled around, the decaying old church and burial ground were eerie and supercreepy.

  He’d had good times there already with his friends Jennie Oliver and Hank Leewood; they loved to go there at night; find a little patch of land just outside the church and graveyard, with its little stone wall; start a fire; and roast s’mores while they made up stories to creep one another out. They’d freaked themselves out and run home only once!

  Liam figured he knew why Emmy was getting scared; this was the first time they were going to be alone in the house at night. There wasn’t anything all that close to them, though the old Dandridge house had never been a big plantation. Liam had learned in school what most people thought of as a plantation was something huge and white, with great big columns, where only rich people lived.

  It really just meant ?
??farm”—but once, this place had been a nice enough farmhouse. It was two stories tall, built around 1820, and it still had a supercool curved stairway, giant marble mantels, cool little garrets, and a dumbwaiter for when people used to send food straight up a tiny elevator from the kitchen to those waiting for it upstairs.

  And Liam had also loved Auntie Kate—she’d been the coolest. She always told the best stories, and she even had wild black-and-white hair herself and could have scared any kid in a horror movie.

  “I saw a witch!” Emmy insisted, shaking. “I saw her. It was as if she were jumping out of the fireplace at me!”

  “She was jumping at you. And then?”

  “And then I screamed!”

  Liam shook his head, and he saw the flash of anger sweep through Emmy’s eyes. She was older than him—by a year. And—or so she liked to tell him—a thirteen-year-old girl was way more mature than a twelve-year-old boy.

  “You’re acting like a baby,” Liam said. “Mom only works part-time so she can be with us as much as possible with Dad away. Act too much like a jerk, and she’ll be scared to leave us alone to go to work!”

  “I’m not acting like a baby!” Emmy protested, but the doorbell rang, and she screamed again.

  “It’s just Hank and Jennie,” Liam told Emmy. “They’re coming over; we’re going to play video games or watch a movie or something. You can watch with us, if you want. I mean, if you can keep from screaming. Jennie doesn’t scream through everything.”

  “Her brother is older, more mature—and protective!” Emmy announced in a huff. Well, of course. Liam was pretty sure Emmy had a crush on Jennie’s brother, Jake. Jake was pretty cool most of the time. But then, Liam knew Jake wasn’t his brother—he was Jennie’s—and that made all the difference in the world.

  Jake was already tall, and he’d grown some major muscle. Liam had to admit that he didn’t have that kind of muscle, though he was a darned good baseball player. He could whip around the bases like nothing.

  Girls tend to prefer football guys, he thought. Like Jake. Except for Jennie. But she was just cool with her light brown ponytail and sizzling hazel eyes. She could laugh, she could play in the dirt—and she never screamed. She was just the best girl ever.

  The doorbell rang again. Liam hurried to the entry and threw open the door, expecting his friends.

  It wasn’t Jennie, but it was Hank. “Come in, come in. We’ve got some cool movies to watch.”

  “Just Emmy here?” Hank asked. “I mean you and Emmy? Where’s your mom?”

  “Working.”

  “Oh yeah. That’s right; Saturday night. So what do you want to watch? I brought a new haunted house movie; it’s cool. My mom says it’s our age group,” Hank said. “I think you’ll like this, Emmy—it has the actor you think is so cool in it. What’s-his-name? Jack Black!”

  “She can watch—as long as she doesn’t scream every second!” Liam said. “Jennie’s coming over too.”

  “Yeah, I just saw her—her and her big bro, Jake. They’re walking through the cemetery. Jake was stopping to read some headstone; they have a history thing on it next week in school—you know, on the battles that were fought here. I figure they’ll be here soon.”

  “We can go out and find them if you want,” Liam offered.

  “Juvenile! Playing in a graveyard!” Emmy said.

  “Yeah, whatever,” Liam said. “We’re going to go to meet them.” He started out the door, Hank tailing behind him.

  Emmy came running after them.

  “Hey! You just said this was juvenile.”

  “And I told Mom I’d watch you!”

  “And you’re chicken! Bawk, bawk, bawk. Emmy thinks the witch is in the house. You know, the old witch who supposedly died about a thousand years ago,” Liam told Hank.

  “Cool! You really saw a witch?” Hank asked Emmy.

  “No! She’s a freak who screams at everything!” Liam said. “Don’t feed into it!”

  Emmy rapped him on the back of his head. “And you’re a freak who likes to play in old cemeteries!”

  “Hey, well, you know, you’re both right!” Hank said cheerfully.

  Hank led the way. There was a patch of scraggly forest and brush right next to Liam’s new home, and where the brush ended, the first of the old tombstones could be found. The cemetery had aboveground vaults and belowground vaults—they were up on a hill here, so graves could be dug pretty deep.

  Many of the old graves were falling apart; they were so old that the writing was worn clean off them. Some were really cool, with old death’s heads and skeletal cherublike things. Liam thought the vaults and mausoleums were the neatest. Some were just kind of sealed and not so big. Some had iron gates and could be opened, just like miniatures of the big mausoleums that could be found at some cemeteries.

  This one was all overgrown with vines and weeds. And now, with the sun going down, it was exceptionally cool and creepy. A little bit of mist was rising around them.

  “Okay,” Emmy said. “This is it. We’ve come far enough!”

  “What do you mean ‘far enough’?” Liam asked. “You know, Lover boy’s out here somewhere. Lover boy isn’t afraid of cemeteries.”

  “You little creep!” Emmy said.

  “You like Jake?” Hank asked her.

  “Liam is being a little cockroach!” Emmy said.

  “I was just asking,” Hank said, “because Jennie thinks he likes you.”

  “Oh . . . Oh, well, cool, then,” Emmy said.

  “Hey!”

  They heard a shout, and looked across a bunch of old stones, and through a trail of the mausoleums, they could see Jake and Jennie.

  Liam started running toward them.

  Then he heard it again.

  A scream; a bloodcurdling scream.

  He swung around, nearly tripping over one of the evil-looking little gargoyle things that stuck out of the ground.

  It was Emmy.

  Naturally, it was Emmy.

  And she’s being such a jerk, such a big jerk! Now she’s probably screaming because Jake is there. And she wants him to run to her rescue and hold the silly screaming ninny she is.

  But he was Emmy’s brother.

  Just a year younger.

  And so he began to trot back to Emmy.

  Jake and Jennie had come running toward the sound of Emmy’s scream, of course. And, being a good friend, Hank too came running across the broken stones and through the old vaults.

  Jake was a pretty manly man for a teenage kid; he was already by Emmy’s side.

  He had an arm around her.

  But Emmy was still shaking. She didn’t look like a girl who had just been screaming to get a boy to put his arm around her.

  “She was there, I’m telling you; she was there! She wears all black, and her hair is black but has some wild, like, white in it. . . . She’s a witch; you can see she’s a witch. She was there, waving her arms at me all crazy like!” Emmy was telling Jake.

  Jake was frowning. Frowning himself, Liam looked at Jennie’s older brother. “Come on, Jake, it’s not like she doesn’t have a wicked imagination.”

  And Jake stared at him. “There was something . . . something in the bushes before,” he said. “I was already getting the creeps, telling Jennie we needed to get to your place, when you all came and Emmy started screaming.”

  Liam just stared at Jake. It was dumb. Just dumb.

  “You believe Emmy saw a long-dead witch who supposedly lived around here?” Liam asked.

  “I’m not feeling really good out here,” Jennie murmured.

  Liam had to look around Jake’s body to see Jennie. She was serious too. She offered Liam a weak smile. “My mom was okay with us walking over to your house, but she called a minute ago to say she’s going to come and pick Jake and me up in a few hours—she doesn’t want us walking back.”

  “Your mom thinks there a witch in the cemetery?” Hank asked, disbelieving.

  “No!” Jennie said. “No,
she’s just . . . I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that kind of night.”

  Liam sighed. “There’s not even a full moon. And hey, I read. You guys do a lot of freaking out—I do a lot of reading. The so-called ‘witch’ was never evil. She was killed by an evil general because she wanted nothing to do with him. She was good and helped people and cured them. So—”

  “There’s something out here,” Jennie said, ignoring Liam and turning to look at her brother. “I’m scared.”

  “Emmy, look what you’ve done!” Liam said.

  “No, no, Emmy didn’t do it!” Jennie protested. “It just seemed creepy out already. We were, like, kind of hearing things.”

  “Like the breeze moving through the trees. Come on, guys! I’m the one who just moved here from the city,” Liam reminded them. “You’re all from the country!” he said, looking from Jake to Jennie and on to Hank.

  They all just stared back at him.

  Then suddenly, a flock of birds shot straight up into the sky. It was like a movie, there were so many of them, and the way they moved. . . .

  It was like they formed a dark shadow monster in the sky.

  Emmy screamed again.

  Good grief, could that girl scream.

  “The church!” Jake said. “The church! It’s holy, or whatever! Demons can’t go in a church, right?”

  Liam just couldn’t believe it.

  Birds.

  And they were all running.

  And they’d left him!

  “Hey!” he shouted.

  It was growing dark; he didn’t really want to be standing there alone in the old graveyard.

  “Hey!” he shouted again. And he ran after them. “You guys have all gone nuts!”

  “Locked!” Jennie said, pushing at the door.

  “No, no, the Reverend Hopkins never locks the church. He says that’s one of the great things about being here—you don’t have to lock the church! He likes it open— He likes people to come and go when they want,” Jake said.