Dear Diary, I'm Dead

  Go ahead and scream.

  No one can hear you. You’re no longer in the safe world you know.

  You’ve taken a terrifying step …

  into the darkest corners of your imagination.

  You’ve opened the door to …

  Welcome…

  Hello, I’m R.L. Stine. Do you ever wish you could see into the future? Would it make you happy to know what questions are on tomorrow’s history test? Or which team is going to win the basketball game Friday night?

  Knowing the future made Alex Smith very happy. You see, Alex has a bad habit. He likes to make bets with his friends.

  One day, Alex finds a very special diary. The diary tells Alex the future—all he needs to know to win every bet.

  Alex thinks he’s lucky.

  But sometimes it doesn’t help to know the future. Sometimes the future holds some terrifying surprises. You see, when Alex opened the cover to the diary, he opened the door … to THE NIGHTMARE ROOM.

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Go Deeper Into This Nightmare

  About the Author

  Preview: The Nightmare Room #6: They Call Me Creature

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  DEAR DIARY,

  My hands are shaking so badly, I don’t know if I can write in you today. I was so scared last night. I’m still trembling.

  Maybe I should start at the beginning. You know my friends Chip and Shawn and I have been talking about camping out in Full Moon Woods for nearly a year. Well, last night we finally did it.

  What a mistake!

  We thought it was going to be cool. We loaded all our gear into my dad’s van, and he dropped us off at the dirt path that leads into the woods.

  “Stick to the path, Alex,” Dad called. “It will lead you to the creek. I’ll pick you up right here tomorrow morning.” The tires spun in the dirt as he drove away.

  It was a cloudy afternoon. As soon as we stepped into the woods, it grew even darker. Our backpacks were bulging. And the canvas tent weighed a ton.

  But we didn’t mind. We were finally on our own in the woods. We walked quickly, following the path, making our way toward the creek.

  Shawn started to sing an old Beatles song. Chip and I joined in. I loved the way our voices echoed off the trees.

  “We should have brought our guitars,” I said. All three of us play guitar, and we’re starting a band.

  Chip laughed. “Great idea, Alex. Where would we plug them in?”

  “We’d need a very long extension cord!” I replied.

  We were laughing and singing, enjoying the fresh cool air and the crunch of our shoes over the carpet of fat brown leaves.

  The path ended, but we kept walking. I was pretty sure the creek was straight ahead. It grew even darker, and a cold wind swirled around us.

  We walked for at least an hour before we realized we were totally lost.

  “We should be able to hear the creek,” Shawn said. He set down his backpack and stretched. “Where is it? Did we go in the right direction?”

  “We’ll never find it now,” Chip sighed. “It’s too dark.”

  A gust of wind sent dead leaves flying all around us. “Are there bears in these woods?” Shawn asked. He sounded a little frightened.

  “No. But there are bunny rabbits that can chew you to bits!” I joked.

  Chip laughed but Shawn didn’t. I shivered and wrapped my yellow windbreaker tighter around me.

  “Which way is the path?” Shawn asked, turning back. He pointed. “Is that the way we came? Maybe we should go back that way.”

  A hooting sound made me jump. A bird on a low tree branch. It hooted again, peering down at us.

  “I don’t want to go back,” I said. “Let’s keep going. The creek is this way. I know it.”

  But Shawn and Chip wanted to stay right there and pitch the tent. It wasn’t a bad place. A circle of tall grass surrounded by tall trees. So I agreed.

  We tossed our backpacks in a pile and started to unroll the tent.

  That’s when I had the feeling for the first time—the feeling that we were being watched.

  I felt a prickling on the back of my neck. I heard a snapping sound behind us, like someone stepping on dry twigs.

  I The trees tilted toward each other, as if closing in on us.

  “What’s your problem?” Shawn asked. “Did you see an animal?”

  I laughed. “Yeah. A herd of buffalo.”

  We struggled with the tent. The gusting wind kept blowing it out of our hands. We finally got it to stand. But then the wind kept blowing out our campfire.

  By the time we finished dinner, it was late. All three of us were yawning. My shoulders ached from carrying the heavy backpack.

  We decided to climb into the tent and go to sleep. Shawn and Chip crawled inside. I started to follow them—then stopped.

  I had the strange feeling again. The prickling on the back of my neck. Who was watching us?

  I squinted through the misty darkness. I sucked in my breath when I saw dull gray circles—several pairs of them—floating low between the trees.

  Eyes?

  I dove into the tent. We slept in our clothes under wool blankets. The wool felt scratchy. The tent was damp from dew.

  We couldn’t sleep. We started to tell each other jokes. We were kidding around and laughing a lot.

  But we stopped laughing when the howls started.

  They were low at first, like ambulance sirens far in the distance. But then they sounded closer, louder. And we knew they were animal howls.

  “I … hope it’s dogs!” Shawn exclaimed. “Maybe it’s just some wild dogs.”

  We huddled close together. We all knew we weren’t hearing dogs. We were hearing wolf howls.

  So close… so close we could hear the harsh, shallow breaths between the howls.

  And then the soft crunch of footsteps outside the tent.

  They were here! The howling creatures! The tent flap blew open.

  My friends and I let out screams.

  Two men in black leather jackets leaned down to peer into our tent. One of them raised a flashlight. He moved the light slowly from face to face. “Are you kids okay?” he asked.

  “Wh-who are you?” I asked.

  “Forest Patrol,” the other man said.

  “Yeah. Right. Forest Patrol,” his partner repeated.

  They both stared at us so hard. Their eyes were cold, not friendly at all.

  “The woods really aren’t safe,” the man with the flashlight said. “Not safe at all.”

  His partner nodded. “First thing in the morning, you should get yourselves to the road. It’s right up there.” He pointed.

  We promised we would. We thanked them for checking on us.

  But I didn’t like the way they stared. They didn’t look like forest rangers. And as soon as they left, the frightening howls started up again. Howls all around us.

&nbs
p; We didn’t sleep at all that night. We lay awake, staring up at the tent walls, listening to the animal howls.

  The next morning, as soon as sunlight began trickling down through the trees, we jumped up. We hurried out of the tent and began to pack.

  I started to fold up the tent—but stopped when I saw something strange on the ground. “Hey—!” I called out to Chip and Shawn. “Look!”

  I pointed to the footprints in the soft dirt. Two pairs that led from the woods to the front of our tent.

  The Forest Rangers’ prints.

  All three of us stared, stared in shock and horror.

  Their prints weren’t human. They were animal paws.

  Animal paws in the dirt.

  Wolf prints!

  “Alex, is any of that true?” Miss Gold asked.

  I rolled the pages of my story between my hands. “No,” I told her. “I made it all up.”

  “You and Chip and Shawn never went camping?” she asked, peering at me over the rims of her glasses.

  “No. Never,” I said.

  “He’s afraid of poison ivy!” Chip called out.

  The whole class laughed.

  “He’s afraid of trees!” another kid chimed in.

  The whole class laughed even harder.

  “He’s afraid of bugs!” Shawn added.

  No one laughed at that. No one ever laughs at Shawn’s jokes. He’s a good guy, but he just isn’t funny.

  “Well, that is an excellent short story,” Miss Gold said. “One of the best we’ve heard this week. Thank you for sharing it with the class, Alex. Very good work.”

  She waved me back to my seat. But I didn’t move from the front of the classroom. “Aren’t you going to tell me my grade?” I crossed my fingers behind my back.

  “Oh. Right.” Miss Gold pushed the glasses up on her nose. “I’ll give you a B-plus.”

  “Huh?” I let out a groan. “Not an A?”

  “B-plus,” she repeated.

  “But—why?” I demanded.

  She brushed her blond hair off her forehead. “Well … you did very well with the plot. But I think you need to work on describing your characters better. We don’t really know what Chip and Shawn look like—do we?”

  “But they’re sitting right there!” I protested, pointing at my two friends. “You know what they look like!”

  “Real ugly!” a kid shouted from the back of the room.

  Big laughter.

  But I wasn’t laughing. I needed an A.

  “You need to describe them in the story,” Miss Gold continued. “And we don’t know what’s different about them. You didn’t give them real personalities.”

  “But—” I started.

  “And I think you need more description of the woods,” she said. “More detail. You know, Alex, the more little details you add to a story, the more real it becomes.”

  Tessa Wayne was waving her hand frantically in the air. “There’s something I don’t understand,” she said. “If the two men were wolves, where did they get the leather jackets? I mean, they were completely dressed, right? But they’re wolves? And how did they get the flashlight?”

  “Good questions, Tessa,” Miss Gold said.

  I rolled my eyes. Tessa always asks the good questions. That’s why I hate her guts.

  “The men were werewolves,” I explained, sighing. “Not regular wolves.”

  “Well, the bell is about to ring,” Miss Gold said, gazing up at the wall clock. She turned back to me. “I just had an idea. You did such a good job with the diary format. I mean, writing your story as a diary entry was very clever.”

  “Thanks,” I said weakly. So why didn’t she give me an A?

  “You should keep a real diary, Alex,” she continued. “Write in it every day. You can hand it in at the end of the year for extra credit.”

  “Really?” I said. “Okay. Thanks.”

  I saw Tessa’s hand fly up. I knew what she was going to say.

  “Miss Gold, I want to start a diary too. Can I do a diary for extra credit?”

  “Yes,” Miss Gold replied. “Anyone in class can keep a diary. Very good idea.”

  The bell rang.

  I hurried to my seat and started to shove my story into my backpack. I felt a sharp tap on my back. I knew who it was.

  “Pay up, Alex,” Tessa said. She stuck her hand in front of my face.

  “Excuse me?” I tried to play innocent.

  “Pay up,” she insisted. “You bet me five dollars you’d get an A on that story. You lost.”

  “A B-plus is almost an A,” I said.

  She waved the hand in my face. “Pay up.”

  I reached into my jeans pocket. “But … I only have three dollars,” I said.

  “Then why did you bet me?” Tessa demanded. “You know you never win a bet against me. You always lose.”

  “Wait a sec,” I said. I caught up with Chip and Shawn at the door. “Pay up,” I said, blocking their way.

  They both groaned. Then they reached into their pockets, and each of them handed me a dollar bill.

  I hurried back to Tessa. “Okay, I’ve got the five,” I said. I handed it to her.

  “What was that about?” she asked, motioning toward Chip and Shawn.

  “I bet them each a dollar that after you heard my story, you’d want to write in a diary too.”

  Tessa blushed. Her cheeks turned an angry red. “Big deal,” she muttered. “So you won two bucks from your friends. But you’re such a loser, Alex. Now you’re totally broke—right?”

  I pulled out my pockets. Empty. “Yeah. I’m broke.”

  Tessa grinned. “I love making bets with you,” she said. She held the money up in front of my face and counted the five dollars one by one. “It’s like taking candy from a baby.”

  “Wait a minute—” I told her.

  An idea had flashed into my mind. An awesome idea. An idea that would turn me from a loser into a winner.

  “I want to make one more bet with you,” I told Tessa. “A really big bet.”

  “You did what?” Shawn screamed. “Alex, are you totally whacked?”

  “I’m going to win this one,” I said.

  “But you never win a bet with Tessa,” Chip said. “How could you bet a hundred dollars?”

  We were in Chip’s garage after school, tuning up our guitars. The garage had only one electrical outlet, so we could plug in only two amps. That meant that one of us had to play acoustic, even though we all had electric guitars.

  “I won’t need a hundred dollars,” I said, “because I’m going to win.”

  Sproinnnng.

  I broke a string. I let out a groan. “I’ll just play without it,” I muttered.

  Shawn shook his head. “You’re crazy, Alex. After what happened with McArthur and the flag …”

  “That was a sure thing!” I cried. “I should have won that bet!”

  Just thinking about it made me angry.

  A few weeks ago, I made a deal with Mr. McArthur. He’s one of the janitors at school. Except he’s not called a janitor. He’s called a maintenance engineer.

  McArthur is a nice guy. He and I kid around sometimes. So I made a deal with him.

  He raises the flag every morning on the flagpole in front of our school. So I paid him five dollars to raise it upside down on Wednesday morning.

  Then I dragged Tessa to school early and bet her ten dollars that he would raise the flag upside down.

  “You’re crazy, Alex,” Tessa said, rolling her eyes. “McArthur has never slipped up like that.”

  He will this morning, I thought happily. I started planning how I’d spend Tessa’s ten bucks.

  How was I to know that Mrs. Juarez, the principal, would arrive at school just when McArthur was raising the flag?

  She came walking up the steps and saw McArthur. So she stopped in front of the pole, raised her hand to her heart, and waited to watch the flag go up.

  Of course McArthur chickened out. He raised the fla
g right side up.

  I didn’t blame him. What could he do with her standing right there?

  But I had to pay Tessa the ten bucks. And then McArthur said he’d pay me back my five dollars in a week or so. Not a good day.

  “It’s my turn,” I told my two friends. “Tessa has won about three hundred bets in a row. So it’s definitely my turn!”

  “But why did you bet her that your diary would be more exciting than hers?” Shawn asked.

  “Because it will be,” I said. “Tessa is real smart and gets perfect grades. That’s because all she does is study. She spends all her time on homework and projects for extra credit. She’s so totally boring! So her diary can’t be exciting. No way!”

  “Who’s going to decide whose diary is the best?” Chip asked.

  “We’re going to let Miss Gold decide,” I said. “But it won’t be a hard choice for her. This is one bet I’m not going to lose.”

  “Want to bet?” Chip asked.

  I squinted across the garage at him. “Excuse me?”

  “Bet you five dollars Tessa wins this bet too.”

  “You’re on!” I said. I slapped him a high-five.

  “Count me in,” Shawn said. “Five bucks on Tessa.”

  “You guys are real losers,” I groaned. “Let’s play. What’s the first song?”

  “How about ‘Purple Haze’?” Chip suggested. “It’s our best song.”

  “It’s our only song,” I muttered.

  We counted off, tapping our feet, and started to play “Purple Haze.” We played for about ten seconds, when we heard a loud, crackling pop.

  The music stopped and the lights went out.

  We’d blown the fuses again.

  A short while later, I dragged my guitar case into the house. Mom greeted me at the door. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. “I have a surprise.”

  I tossed my backpack onto the floor. Then I tossed my jacket on top of it.

  “Don’t tell me. Let me guess,” I said. “I’ll bet you five dollars it’s a puppy. You finally bought me that puppy I asked for when I was six?”

  Mom shook her head. “No puppy. You know your dad is allergic.”

  “He can breathe at work,” I said. “Why does he have to breathe at home?”

  Mom laughed. She thinks I’m a riot. She laughs at just about everything I say.

  “I’ll bet five dollars it’s … a DVD player!” I exclaimed.