Fatal Games Read online

  "Is that it?" Al asked, slowing down as they approached.

  "I hope not," Chip said, running a shaky hand through his thick brown hair, glancing again at the map. Maybe this wasn't such a hot idea after all, moving in at night. He shined a flashlight on the house, looking for the number. The light beam reflected off the eyes of a cat, which quickly scampered away.

  "I think we're down the street a bit," Chip said, relieved.

  Al grumbled and drove on.

  Chip was studying the houses they passed when something leapt at him from the backseat.

  "Yikes!" Chip exclaimed as an enormous black cat landed on his lap. "Maggie!" he said, scratching his pet behind the ears. "You nearly scared me to death. I didn't know you were back there."

  The cat mewed softly and stared up at Chip with bright green eyes. Fearful eyes. Despite her large size, Maggie was the biggest scaredy-cat on four feet. This move wasn't going to be easy on her.

  "I think this is it," Chip said, pointing to a house that didn't look much better than the decrepit one they had just passed. "Number thirteen." Maggie raised her head as Al slowed the van. Suddenly the hairs on Maggie's back stood on end.

  Chip smoothed the hair down and gazed at the house again. "I know how you feel, Maggie."

  "I can't believe your mother actually bought this dump," Al grumbled.

  "C'mon, you've got to admit it's better than that crummy apartment, and the trailer before that," Chip insisted, staring up at the dark, gloomy-looking house. In the gleaming moonlight it looked like something out of a low-budget vampire movie. Only worse.

  "If your deadbeat dad could've held a job for more than six months we wouldn't have had to live in all those scuzz holes," Al said, pulling into the driveway.

  "I thought you said Freddy Krueger was my dad," Chip reminded Al.

  Al grunted and parked the van, but neither he nor Chip made a move to get out. They sat in silence, staring up at the dismal-looking house.

  "Your mother must have been out of her mind," Al finally said. "Like your father. You'll probably end up the same way."

  One of the shutters on the house hung loose on a squeaky hinge. As Chip watched, the wind began to bang it against the side of the house.

  "At least Mike did the right thing by getting himself killed and leaving your mother some insurance money," Al said. Al always called Chip's father Mike, never Dad. "Maybe that doughnut shop will be a great success and she'll make a ton of money."

  "I wouldn't worry about it, Al. Even if she makes a million dollars, I doubt she'd give any of it to you."

  "There're other ways to inherit money," Al said ominously.

  Chip gazed up at the window of what would be his bedroom. A shadow moved across the window — someone was there! Looking out the upstairs bedroom window! Chip strained his eyes like laser beams cutting through the darkness. He saw the somebody pacing back and forth in front of the window. A hooded figure. Then the hooded figure was at the window looking out again, looking down at him. Then it quickly pulled away.

  "I think we have company," Chip said.

  "Huh?"

  "Someone's up there."

  Al gave his brother a crooked smile. His eyes grew wide with mock horror. "Let me guess who it is. Is it Dad-dy?"

  "For real. I saw someone. Wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up."

  "Well, let me see. That could be any teenager in Springwood, since almost everyone owns a hooded sweatshirt."

  Maggie suddenly screeched, making Al jump. Chip could tell Al was more nervous than he let on.

  "You should have left that stupid cat back at the apartment — permanently," Al said sharply. "What's her problem?"

  "Maybe she saw what I saw."

  "Yeah, right," Al said, shooting him a disdainful look. But still he made no move to get out of the van. "So what do you want to do?"

  "Maybe we should call the cops," Chip suggested.

  "Are you serious?" Al said. "You really saw someone in there?" Al's eyes roamed over the house. "Where?"

  "Upstairs."

  Al stared at the upstairs window. "You know why your mother got this house so cheap, don't you?"

  "I know." A heavy silence hung in the van. Those poor girls… Chip remembered their names: Ellen and Tiffany. They had been cheerleaders. Chip remembered them from the times he had played football against Springwood. Pretty girls.

  Chip had dated a cheerleader — Melanie Wilson. He had taken her to the movies a few times, and out for ice cream. But Melanie had seemed more interested in being seen with him than in seeing him. Al told him he was a stupid jerk for breaking up with a hot babe like Melanie. Maybe Al was right. Beautiful girls weren't exactly a dime a dozen.

  Chip started to refold the road map he had been using, but it was dark and he made a mess of it. Finally, in frustration, he crumpled it and shoved it into the glove compartment. He slammed the glove compartment door shut and climbed out of the van, Maggie at his heels. A moment later Al was at his side, his jaw muscles clenched the way they always did when he was uptight about something.

  Maybe this wasn't such a hot idea, Chip thought as a cold breeze blew a cluster of dead leaves toward him. Maggie jumped back skittishly as the wind banged the loose shutter against the side of the house. Al jumped too, shooting a glance up in the direction of the sound, a sound as sharp as a rifle shot. "That shutter's the first thing that's going," he said, nervously pounding his right fist into his palm in time to the banging shutter.

  Chip noticed that the sides of the house were overgrown with wild-looking vines, like chains holding the house prisoner.

  "This place is already driving me nuts," Al muttered under his breath.

  Maggie rubbed nervously against Chip's leg, stopping every now and then to glance up at the house. "What is it, Maggie?" Chip asked. "What's up there?"

  "Huh?" Al barked.

  "I was talking to the cat."

  "Oh." A gust of wind blew Al's hood up against the back of his head.

  Maggie darted away.

  "Maggie!" Chip called, but the cat had already disappeared into the night. He started after her.

  "Let her go," Al said. "Maybe she'll catch a rat or something. Earn her keep for a change."

  But Chip ignored Al. This was a new neighborhood for all of them and he didn't want Maggie to get lost. At night. On Elm Street.

  Chip brushed through the bushes around the house, but Maggie wasn't there.

  "Maggie!" Chip called. But the only answer was the wind whistling through the bare branches near the house. He returned to Al, who was still staring up at the window. Chip followed his brother's gaze, but the hooded figure was gone.

  "Maybe it's some kids," Chip suggested. "You know, on a dare, goofing around. Because of the murders. They probably wanted to see where it all happened."

  Al considered this. "So let's go up there and chase the little punks out. Beat the crap out of them for messing around in our house." Al resumed his fist-pounding.

  "We could," Chip said. "Or we could just ask them to leave."

  "Whatever." Al flexed his muscular arms and cracked his knuckles one by one.

  They started to walk tentatively toward the house. But when they were within a few yards of the front door, they heard a hideous screech.

  It came from inside the house.

  Chapter 4

  Chip wanted to call the police for sure now, but he felt strangely paralyzed. He listened to the rapid pounding of his heart — like the shutter banging against the house.

  "What was that?" Al asked, rubbing his sweaty palms through his spiky blond hair. He sounded as scared as Chip felt.

  "I don't know," Chip answered, awed by the rush of his own adrenaline. The hairs on his neck prickled. Despite his fear, Chip felt driven to find out who — or what — was inside. He tried to persuade himself that it was just some local kids on a dare as he slowly crossed the broken flagstone walk and started up the front steps to the open porch.

  The front d
oor was open a crack. He hesitated. Should he go in? It wasn't too late to run back to the van.

  Chip felt something grab his shoulder. He spun around as his heart shot into his throat. It was Al, holding a tire iron from the van.

  "It's your move, Mr. Call-Me-a-Chicken," Al taunted, making little chicken sounds. He handed Chip the crowbar, then flicked out his switchblade. "After you."

  Chip couldn't back down now.

  The tire iron felt cold and hard in the palm of Chip's sweaty hand. It wouldn't be hard to bash someone's brains in with this thing, Chip thought, swinging it gently, feeling the weight. He wondered if he could crush a skull in if his life depended on it.

  He hoped he wouldn't have to find out.

  He pushed the door open and stepped inside. As he crossed the threshold, he suddenly thought of Evan Walker — the boy everyone had blamed for the two murders. Evan's class picture had been on the front page of the newspapers. He looked like a bookworm with his thick glasses. The papers had also carried pictures of the spot where Evan had hanged himself after stuffing the girls' bodies into the fiery furnace. And now, Chip was here in that same house… his house.

  The air was steeped with the aura of death.

  Chip pulled the flashlight from his back pocket and flicked it on. In the cone of light he saw Maggie's cat paw prints on the sooty living room floor. Was it Maggie who had made that hideous shriek? He made a silent prayer that his cat was still alive.

  Chip moved the flashlight ahead. Maggie's paw prints were joined by a larger set of footprints. Both sets of prints ran up the stairs. Chip followed them with the light.

  "After you," Al said again, poking Chip in the butt with the point of his switchblade knife.

  Chip slapped Al's hand away. "Quit it. I'm going."

  Chip mustered his courage and made his way up the steps, one creaking stair at a time. Al followed a safe distance behind.

  Partway up the staircase, Chip stopped short. He heard a strange sound coming from above. Chip nearly toppled backward into Al as a large section of dingy wallpaper curled off the wall and fell to the floor at his feet.

  Behind him he could hear Al's heavy breathing. Then Al made the derisive little chicken sounds and Chip started up the groaning staircase again.

  Outside, the crickets had stopped chirping. It was oddly quiet now. There was a sour smell in the house. Chip listened to the silence, as if the house itself were about to tell him of the horrible things that had happened within its walls.

  Chip reached the top of the stairs and shined the flashlight left, then right, the light revealing a long, dusty hallway. At each end of the hallway was a door.

  The cat's paw prints zigzagged over the larger footprints and led to the right. Chip followed them to the bedroom at the end of the long hallway, where he had seen the hooded figure. The bedroom door was slightly ajar. Chip pushed it open a few inches more with the tire iron. He was gripping the weapon so tightly his hand ached.

  Something banged loudly inside the room!

  Startled, Chip dropped the flashlight. It clattered to the floor and the light went out.

  Chip and Al stood frozen in the dark.

  "Sounds like the wind blew a door shut in there," Chip said, groping along the floorboards for the flashlight. He found it and picked it up, then clicked it on and off a few times, but nothing happened. He slipped it into his back pocket.

  "Nice going, ditz," Al muttered.

  Chip heard a tapping sound behind him and spun around, but it was only Al, nervously tapping a cigarette on the side of its pack. With a click of his lighter, Al lit the cigarette; then the lighter went out and the hall was dark again. Chip stared at the glowing red dot of Al's cigarette for a moment. It was almost hypnotizing, taking him into the deep reaches of his subconscious — the part of his mind that remembered his dreams.

  "After you," Al said again, the bright ember dancing up and down as he spoke with the cigarette stuck in his mouth.

  It had become a sick game to him, and the loser was the guy who chickened out first.

  Chip was determined not to be the loser.

  He stepped into the room. It was large and bare. It would make a nice bedroom, Chip thought.

  The window was open a crack. The bare branches of an elm tree outside the window rattled like skeleton bones. Silvery moonlight shined into the room, casting jagged swordlike shadows across the bare floor. As the wind shook the branches of the elm tree, the swords seemed to creep toward Chip.

  There was a small, odd-looking stove in the corner of the room. It looked spooky in the gleaming moonlight, even spookier than when Chip had first toured the house.

  Funny place for a stove.

  At Chip's side, Al nervously exhaled a lungful of cigarette smoke. The foul smell of the smoke mingled with the smell of sweat and some other odor Chip couldn't identify.

  Then the wooden window shutter banged noisily against the side of the house again and Chip heard a scampering sound behind him. He spun around, raising the tire iron as he turned and saw a pair of bright eyes coming toward him, bright eyes gleaming in the moonlight, scurrying across the bare wooden floor a foot or so off the ground.

  Maggie!

  She meowed mournfully as she rubbed against his leg, then glanced nervously at the bathroom door, where the large footprints in the dust disappeared. A spindly spider was slowly making its way across the closed door, but a loud crash sent it scuttling away into deep shadows.

  The crash came from inside the bathroom.

  Chapter 5

  Every molecule in Chip's body told him to flee. It wasn't worth dying because Al had called him a chicken. Better to be a live chicken than a dead duck.

  But Al had a different idea. He pushed Chip toward the bathroom door, clucking like a chicken. Al was using him as a human shield. Chip glared at his brother, feeling his grip around the tire iron tighten, and for a brief moment he was tempted to smash Al right on top of his spiky blond head.

  But instead he stepped toward the door, and with a sudden, vicious kick, smashed the bathroom door open. A bloodcurdling cry ripped through his throat — a cry he didn't even recognize as his own, and he dove into the small bathroom, the tire iron high above his head and ready for use.

  Another scream erupted and filled the night air, this one from inside the tub. It was too dark to see clearly, but Chip could detect something moving in the tub.

  It didn't look human. He could see it just enough to know it was grotesque.

  Panicked, Chip swung the tire iron down with all his might.

  The tire iron struck the edge of the old iron tub, clanging loudly. The force of the blow jarred the tire iron from his hand.

  Inside the bathtub, the thing screamed again.

  "Al! Help!" Chip yelled. "It's in the bathtub! The thing's in the bathtub! Heelllp!" Chip frantically searched the bathroom floor, trying to find the tire iron before the thing in the bathtub rose up against him. "Al!"

  But there was no reply from Al.

  He was gone.

  His big, bad brother had run away, leaving Chip to take on this unearthly monster by himself.

  Chip's hands landed on the tire iron, and with a frenzied cry he raised it above his head again. "You're dead meat!" he screamed.

  "Nooo!" the thing in the tub yelled back. "Please — no!"

  A girl's voice.

  Chip stood frozen, the tire iron still poised to strike.

  "No! Please! I'm trapped in here! Please! Help me! Please don't kill me."

  As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Chip realized that the grotesque-looking blurry thing was actually someone thrashing in the tangled shower curtain, trying to get out.

  "Help!" came the girl's voice again.

  Chip set the tire iron across the toilet and helped the wrapped-up girl out of the tub. As he unwound her, it was like helping a butterfly emerge from a cocoon. Even in the dark, he could see the girl was a knockout! A little bit on the skinny side, but still a knockout. She had a
wild mane of auburn hair, and a look of panic in her eyes that was equally out of control. A curious streak of white ran across the top of her head, reflecting what little light there was in the dark bathroom.

  Her balance completely thrown off, the girl clambered out of the bathtub. She was wearing tight jeans and a guy's letter jacket.

  She looked at Chip with wild eyes. Unusually bright eyes, Chip thought, even in the dim light of the bathroom. She was trembling all over.

  Chip realized he had come within inches of bashing her head in with the tire iron. The thought of nearly murdering this beautiful girl made his stomach turn. The realization that he had nearly killed anyone left him feeling uneasy.

  "Hi," Chip said, awkwardly holding his hand out to the girl. "My name's Chip. Chip Parker."

  The girl graciously took his hand, her fingers barely poking out from the long sleeves of the jacket. She let her fingers linger in Chip's for a moment, then withdrew them. "Alicia Norris," she said simply.

  For a moment they stood within inches of each other, speechless. The only light in the small room emanated from the moon and its reflection in her dazzling eyes.

  "Er… you wanna go in the other room?" Chip asked. The girl nodded meekly and followed Chip into the bedroom.

  Chip didn't know why, but he felt instantly at ease with Alicia. They sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor and started chatting as if they were old friends meeting at a coffee shop.

  Alicia explained that she'd been walking by the house earlier when she had seen the real estate woman enter the house to open the windows and then leave. She had watched the woman hide the house key on the nail by the front steps. An hour later — just an hour ago — Alicia had returned and let herself in.

  "But why?" Chip asked.

  Alicia shrugged. "I don't know." Chip could see she wasn't telling him the whole story, but he decided not to push her. After all, they had just met under pretty weird circumstances.