03 - Monster Blood

  MONSTER BLOOD

  Goosebumps - 03

  R.L. Stine

  (An Undead Scan v1.5)

  1

  “I don’t want to stay here. Please don’t leave me here.”

  Evan Ross tugged his mother’s hand, trying to pull her away from the front stoop of the small, gray-shingled house. Mrs. Ross turned to him, an impatient frown on her face.

  “Evan—you’re twelve years old. Don’t act like an infant,” she said, freeing her hand from his grasp.

  “I hate when you say that!” Evan exclaimed angrily, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

  Softening her expression, she reached out and ran her hand tenderly through Evan’s curly, carrot-colored hair. “And I hate when you do that!” he cried, backing away from her, nearly stumbling over a broken flagstone in the walk. “Don’t touch my hair. I hate it!”

  “Okay, so you hate me,” his mother said with a shrug. She climbed up the two steps and knocked on the front door. “You still have to stay here till I get back.”

  “Why can’t I come with you?” Evan demanded, keeping his arms crossed. “Just give me one good reason.”

  “Your sneaker is untied,” his mother replied.

  “So?” Evan replied unhappily. “I like ’em untied.”

  “You’ll trip,” she warned.

  “Mom,” Evan said, rolling his eyes in exasperation, “have you ever seen anyone trip over his sneakers because they were untied?”

  “Well, no,” his mother admitted, a smile slowly forming on her pretty face.

  “You just want to change the subject,” Evan said, not smiling back. “You’re going to leave me here for weeks with a horrible old woman and—”

  “Evan—that’s enough!” Mrs. Ross snapped, tossing back her straight blonde hair. “Kathryn is not a horrible old woman. She’s your father’s aunt. Your great-aunt. And she’s—”

  “She’s a total stranger,” Evan cried. He knew he was losing control, but he didn’t care. How could his mother do this to him? How could she leave him with some old lady he hadn’t seen since he was two? What was he supposed to do here all by himself until his mother got back?

  “Evan, we’ve discussed this a thousand times,” his mother said impatiently, pounding on his aunt’s front door again. “This is a family emergency. I really expect you to cooperate a little better.”

  Her next words were drowned out by Trigger, Evan’s cocker spaniel, who stuck his tan head out of the back window of the rented car and began barking and howling.

  “Now he’s giving me a hard time, too!” Mrs. Ross exclaimed.

  “Can I let him out?” Evan asked eagerly.

  “I guess you’d better,” his mother replied. “Trigger’s so old, we don’t want him to have a heart attack in there. I just hope he doesn’t terrify Kathryn.”

  “I’m coming, Trigger!” Evan called.

  He jogged to the gravel driveway and pulled open the car door. With an excited yip, Trigger leapt out and began running in wide circles around Kathryn’s small, rectangular front yard.

  “He doesn’t look like he’s twelve,” Evan said, watching the dog run, and smiling for the first time that day.

  “See. You’ll have Trigger for company,” Mrs. Ross said, turning back to the front door. “I’ll be back from Atlanta in no time. A couple of weeks at the most. I’m sure your dad and I can find a house in that time. And then we’ll be back before you even notice we’re gone.”

  “Yeah. Sure,” Evan said sarcastically.

  The sun dipped behind a large cloud. A shadow fell over the small front yard.

  Trigger wore himself out quickly and came panting up the walk, his tongue hanging nearly to the ground. Evan bent down and petted the dog’s back.

  He looked up at the gray house as his mother knocked on the front door again. It looked dark and uninviting. There were curtains drawn over the upstairs windows. One of the shutters had come loose and was resting at an odd angle.

  “Mom—why are you knocking?” he asked, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. “You said Aunt Kathryn was totally deaf.”

  “Oh.” His mother’s face reddened. “You got me so upset, Evan, with all your complaining, I completely forgot. Of course she can’t hear us.”

  How am I going to spend two weeks with a strange old lady who can’t even hear me? Evan wondered glumly.

  He remembered eavesdropping on his parents two weeks earlier when they had made the plan. They were seated across from each other at the kitchen table. They thought Evan was out in the backyard. But he was in the hallway, his back pressed against the wall, listening.

  His father, he learned, was reluctant to leave Evan with Kathryn. “She’s a very stubborn old woman,” Mr. Ross had said. “Look at her. Deaf for twenty years, and she’s refused to learn sign language or to lip-read. How’s she going to take care of Evan?”

  “She took good care of you when you were a boy,” Mrs. Ross had argued.

  “That was thirty years ago,” Mr. Ross protested.

  “Well, we have no choice,” Evan heard his mother say. “There’s no one else to leave him with. Everyone else is away on vacation. You know, August is just the worst month for you to be transferred to Atlanta.”

  “Well, excuuuuse me!” Mr. Ross said sarcastically. “Okay, okay. Discussion closed. You’re absolutely right, dear. We have no choice. Kathryn it is. You’ll drive Evan there and then fly down to Atlanta.”

  “It’ll be a good experience for him,” Evan heard his mother say. “He needs to learn how to get along under difficult circumstances. You know, moving to Atlanta, leaving all his friends behind—that isn’t going to be easy on Evan either.”

  “Okay. I said okay,” Mr. Ross said impatiently. “It’s settled. Evan will be fine. Kathryn is a bit weird, but she’s perfectly harmless.”

  Evan heard the kitchen chairs scraping across the linoleum, indicating that his parents were getting up, their discussion ended.

  His fate was sealed. Silently, he had made his way out the front door and around to the backyard to think about what he had just overheard.

  He leaned against the trunk of the big maple tree, which hid him from the house. It was his favorite place to think.

  Why didn’t his parents ever include him in their discussions? he wondered. If they were going to discuss leaving him with some old aunt he’d never seen before, shouldn’t he at least have a say? He learned all the big family news by eavesdropping from the hallway. It just wasn’t right.

  Evan pulled a small twig off the ground and tapped it against the broad tree trunk.

  Aunt Kathryn was weird. That’s what his dad had said. She was so weird, his father didn’t want to leave Evan with her.

  But they had no choice. No choice.

  Maybe they’ll change their minds and take me to Atlanta with them, Evan thought. Maybe they’ll realize they can’t do this to me.

  But now, two weeks later, he was standing in front of Aunt Kathryn’s gray house, feeling very nervous, staring at the brown suitcase filled with his belongings, which stood beside his mother on the stoop.

  There’s nothing to be scared of, he assured himself.

  It’s only for two weeks. Maybe less.

  But then the words popped out before he’d even had a chance to think about them: “Mom—what if Aunt Kathryn is mean?”

  “Huh?” The question caught his mother by surprise. “Mean? Why would she be mean, Evan?”

  And as she said this, facing Evan with her back to the house, the front door was pulled open, and Aunt Kathryn, a large woman with startling black hair, filled the doorway.

  Staring past his mother, Evan saw the knife in Kathryn’s hand. And he saw that the blade of the knife was dripping with blo
od.

  2

  Trigger raised his head and began to bark, hopping backward on his hind legs with each bark.

  Startled, Evan’s mother spun around, nearly stumbling off the small stoop.

  Evan gaped in silent horror at the knife.

  A smile formed on Kathryn’s face, and she pushed open the screen door with her free hand.

  She wasn’t anything like Evan had pictured. He had pictured a small, frail-looking, white-haired old lady. But Kathryn was a large woman, very robust, broad-shouldered, and tall.

  She wore a peach-colored housedress and had straight black hair, pulled back and tied behind her head in a long ponytail that flowed down the back of the dress. She wore no makeup, and her pale face seemed to disappear under the striking black hair, except for her eyes, which were large and round, and steely blue.

  “I was slicing beef,” she said in a surprisingly deep voice, waving the blood-stained kitchen knife. She stared at Evan. “You like beef?”

  “Uh… yeah,” he managed to reply, his chest still fluttery from the shock of seeing her appear with the raised knife.

  Kathryn held open the screen door, but neither Evan nor his mother made any move to go inside. “He’s big,” Kathryn said to Mrs. Ross. “A big boy. Not like his father. I used to call his father Chicken. Because he was no bigger than a chicken.” She laughed as if she had cracked a funny joke.

  Mrs. Ross, picking up Evan’s suitcase, glanced uncomfortably back at him. “Yeah… he’s big,” she said.

  Actually, Evan was one of the shortest kids in his class. And no matter how much he ate, he remained “as skinny as a spaghetti noodle,” as his dad liked to say.

  “You don’t have to answer me,” Kathryn said, stepping aside so that Mrs. Ross could get inside the house with the suitcase. “I can’t hear you.” Her voice was deep, as deep as a man’s, and she spoke clearly, without the indistinct pronunciation that some deaf people have.

  Evan followed his mother into the front hallway, Trigger yapping at his heels. “Can’t you get that dog quiet?” his mother snapped.

  “It doesn’t matter. She can’t hear it,” Evan replied, gesturing toward his aunt, who was heading to the kitchen to put down the knife.

  Kathryn returned a few seconds later, her blue eyes locked on Evan, her lips pursed, as if she were studying him. “So, you like beef?” she repeated.

  He nodded.

  “Good,” she said, her expression still serious. “I always fixed beef for your father. But he only wanted pie.”

  “What kind of pie?” Evan asked, and then blushed when he remembered Kathryn couldn’t hear him.

  “So he’s a good boy? Not a troublemaker?” Kathryn asked Evan’s mother.

  Mrs. Ross nodded, looking at Evan. “Where shall we put his suitcase?” she asked.

  “I can tell by looking he’s a good boy,” Kathryn said. She reached out and grabbed Evan’s face, her big hand holding him under the chin, her eyes examining him closely. “Good-looking boy,” she said, giving his chin a hard squeeze. “He likes the girls?”

  Still holding his chin, she lowered her face to his. “You’ve got a girlfriend?” she asked, her pale face right above his, so close he could smell her breath, which was sour.

  Evan took a step back, an embarrassed grin crossing his face. “No. Not really.”

  “Yes?” Kathryn cried, bellowing in his ear. “Yes? I knew it!” She laughed heartily, turning her gaze to Evan’s mother.

  “The suitcase?” Mrs. Ross asked, picking up the bag.

  “He likes the girls, huh?” Kathryn repeated, still chuckling. “I could tell. Just like his father. His father always liked the girls.”

  Evan turned desperately to his mother. “Mom, I can’t stay here,” he said, whispering even though he knew Kathryn couldn’t hear. “Please—don’t make me.”

  “Hush,” his mother replied, also whispering. “She’ll leave you alone. I promise. She’s just trying to be friendly.”

  “He likes the girls,” Kathryn repeated, leering at him with her cold blue eyes, again lowering her face close to Evan’s.

  “Mom—her breath smells like Trigger’s!” Evan exclaimed miserably.

  “Evan!” Mrs. Ross shouted angrily. “Stop it! I expect you to cooperate.”

  “I’m going to bake you a pie,” Kathryn said, tugging at her black ponytail with one of her huge hands. “Would you like to roll out the dough? I’ll bet you would. What did your father tell you about me, Evan?” She winked at Mrs. Ross. “Did he tell you I was a scary old witch?”

  “No,” Evan protested, looking at his mother.

  “Well, I am!” Kathryn declared, and once again burst into her deep-throated laugh.

  Trigger took this moment to begin barking ferociously and jumping on Evan’s great-aunt. She glared down at the dog, her eyes narrowing, her expression becoming stern. “Look out or we’ll put you in the pie, doggie!” she exclaimed.

  Trigger barked even harder, darting boldly toward the tall, hovering woman, then quickly retreating, his stub of a tail whipping back and forth in a frenzy.

  “We’ll put him in the pie, won’t we, Evan?” Kathryn repeated, putting a big hand on Evan’s shoulder and squeezing it till Evan flinched in pain.

  “Mom—” he pleaded when his aunt finally let go and, smiling, made her way to the kitchen. “Mom—please.”

  “It’s just her sense of humor, Evan,” Mrs. Ross said uncertainly. “She means well. Really. She’s going to bake you a pie.”

  “But I don’t want pie!” Evan wailed. “I don’t like it here, Mom! She hurt me. She squeezed my shoulder so hard—”

  “Evan, I’m sure she didn’t mean to. She’s just trying to joke with you. She wants you to like her. Give her a chance—okay?”

  Evan started to protest, but thought better of it.

  “I’m counting on you,” his mother continued, turning her eyes to the kitchen. They could both see Kathryn at the counter, her broad back to them, hacking away at something with the big kitchen knife.

  “But she’s… weird!” Evan protested.

  “Listen, Evan, I understand how you’re feeling,” his mother said. “But you won’t have to spend all your time with her. There are a lot of kids in this neighborhood. Take Trigger for a walk. I’ll bet you’ll make some friends your age. She’s an old woman, Evan. She won’t want you hanging around all the time.”

  “I guess,” Evan muttered.

  His mother bent down suddenly and gave him a hug, pressing her cheek against his. The hug, he knew, was supposed to cheer him up. But it only made him feel worse.

  “I’m counting on you,” his mother repeated in his ear.

  Evan decided to try and be braver about this. “I’ll help you carry the suitcase up to my room,” he said.

  They carried it up the narrow staircase. His room was actually a study. The walls were lined with bookshelves filled with old hardcover books. A large mahogany desk stood in the center of the room. A narrow cot had been made up under the single, curtained window.

  The window faced out onto the backyard, a long green rectangle with the gray-shingled garage to the left, a tall picket fence to the right. A small, fenced-in area stretched across the back of the yard. It looked like some sort of dog run.

  The room smelled musty. The sharp aroma of mothballs invaded Evan’s nose.

  Trigger sneezed. He rolled onto his back, his legs racing in the air.

  Trigger can’t stand this place either, Evan thought. But he kept his thought to himself, smiling bravely at his mother, who quickly unpacked his suitcase, nervously checking her watch.

  “I’m late. Don’t want to miss my plane,” she said. She gave him another hug, longer this time. Then she took a ten-dollar bill from her pocket-book and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. “Buy yourself a treat. Be good. I’ll hurry back as fast as I can.”

  “Okay. Bye,” he said, his chest feeling fluttery, his throat as dry as cotton. The smell of her perfume momentar
ily drowned out the mothballs.

  He didn’t want her to leave. He had such a bad feeling.

  You’re just scared, he scolded himself.

  “I’ll call you from Atlanta,” she shouted as she disappeared down the stairs to say good-bye to Kathryn.

  Her perfume disappeared.

  The mothballs returned.

  Trigger uttered a low, sad howl, as if he knew what was happening, as if he knew they were being abandoned here in this strange house with the strange old woman.

  Evan picked Trigger up and nose-kissed his cold, black nose. Putting the dog back down on the worn carpet, he made his way to the window.

  He stood there for a long while, one hand holding the curtains aside, staring down at the small, green yard, trying to calm the fluttering in his chest. After a few minutes, he heard his mother’s car back down the gravel drive. Then he heard it roll away.

  When he could no longer hear it, he sighed and plopped down on the cot. “It’s just you and me now, Trigger,” he said glumly.

  Trigger was busily sniffing behind the door.

  Evan stared up at the walls of old books.

  What am I going to do here all day? he asked himself, propping his head in his hands. No Nintendo. No computer. He hadn’t even seen a TV in his great-aunt’s small living room. What am I going to do?

  Sighing again, he picked himself up and walked along the bookshelves, his eyes scanning the titles. There were lots of science books and textbooks, he saw. Books on biology and astronomy, ancient Egypt, chemistry texts, and medical books. Several shelves were filled with dusty, yellowed books. Maybe Kathryn’s husband, Evan’s great-uncle, had been some sort of scientist.

  Nothing here for me to read, he thought glumly.

  He pulled open the closet door.

  “Oh!”

  He cried out as something leapt out at him.

  “Help! Please—help!”

  Everything went black.

  “Help! I can’t see!” Evan screamed.

  3

  Evan staggered back in fear as the warm blackness crept over him.