The New Year's Party Read online

  IN MEMORIAM

  Elizabeth Fleischer and her brother Philip Jeremy Fleischer. You will always live in our hearts.

  Greta peered over Reenie’s shoulder at the photograph. As she read the caption, her hand squeezed Reenie’s arm.

  “It’s Liz and P.J.,” Sean murmured, staring at the page. “Look at them! They look exactly the same. But this photo was taken over thirty years ago!”

  “We weren’t known as Liz and P.J. then,” Liz explained. “We were Beth and Jeremy. We died in a car accident on New Year’s Eve, a snowy night a lot like this one.”

  “And do you know why we died?” P.J. chimed in, stepping up beside his sister. “Do you know why?”

  “We died because some cruel kids played a mean joke on my brother,” Liz told them bitterly. “And now it’s thirty years later. Thirty years that we could have enjoyed, that we could have been alive in. Thirty years later—and you kids did the same thing.”

  “Whoa. Wait—” Sean started.

  “This time it’s going to be different,” Liz snapped, ignoring him. “This time you’re going to pay for your joke. You’re going to pay for the thirty years we lost because of a joke.”

  “You’re all going to die!” P.J. declared gleefully.

  Chapter 34

  A SURPRISE FOR LIZ

  “P.J. and I waited a long time for this moment,” Liz continued. “We spent years and years trapped in a cold, gray place. As the years passed, we grew stronger. And then suddenly we were back. Back in Shadyside. Back in our old bodies. People could see us and hear us again. I realized P.J. and I had been given a second chance—a chance for revenge.”

  “But why take your revenge on us?” Reenie cried. “You died more than ten years before we were born! Her voice came out shaky and weak, but she forced herself to continue. “We didn’t cause your death! We didn’t cause P.J.’s death!”

  Liz moved up in front of Reenie. She stood so close Reenie could feel Liz’s cold, sour breath against her face.

  “I liked you all so much at first. Especially you, Reenie,” Liz said, almost tenderly. “You were all so nice. So friendly to me.” Her expression darkened. “Then you played the same kind of cruel trick on P.J. that my other so-called friends did.”

  She sighed. “And that’s when I knew. That’s when I knew you all had to die.”

  “We play those tricks all the time!” Greta cried. “For fun. To have a good laugh. That’s all. We aren’t like those other kids. We didn’t want to hurt P.J.” She turned to P.J. “I was your friend—remember?”

  P.J. scowled. “Some friend.”

  “Enough talk,” Liz said sharply. “My brother and I have waited so long for this. It’s hard to believe it’s finally going to happen.”

  She picked up the knife.

  Smiled at Reenie. A cold smile. Dead eyes glowing.

  Lurched at Reenie.

  Ty jumped between them.

  “Stay out of this, Ty,” Liz ordered. She raised the knife, her face twisted in anger. “Move away, Ty.”

  Ty didn’t budge. He stood there, hands at his sides, his gaze fixed on Liz.

  “You’ve got the story wrong, Beth,” Ty declared softly.

  “Wrong? What are you talking about?” Liz demanded.

  “You haven’t figured it out, Beth,” he told her. “You haven’t figured out why you were brought back to life.”

  “Ty, step aside,” Liz ordered. “Stop trying to protect Reenie. She’s going to die and so are you.”

  “No, I’m not,” Ty insisted.

  Reenie stared hard at him, studying him. She didn’t know Ty very well. But here he was being so brave, so totally brave, standing up to Liz or Beth or whatever her name was. Standing up to a girl who had been dead for thirty years with such calmness, such courage.

  “You haven’t figured it out, Beth,” Ty repeated softly. “You weren’t brought back from the dead to have your revenge. I was!”

  Chapter 35

  HAPPY NEW YEAR

  “Your revenge!” Liz shrieked. “For what?”

  “I died on that snowy New Year’s Eve in 1965, too,” Ty told her.

  Reenie gasped.

  Ty? Ty is a ghost, too? Reenie felt chill after chill roll down her body.

  “Don’t you remember me?” Ty asked Liz. “I remember you so well. You and your brother.”

  “No!” P.J. and Liz both cried at once. They are scared, Reenie saw. They remember Ty somehow.

  “I didn’t know why I’d been brought back to life, back to Shadyside, either,” Ty continued. “Until I met you and your brother. Then I knew. I knew you were Beth and Jeremy. The ones who ran me down in the snow on New Year’s Eve and left me to die.”

  P.J. uttered a moan of pain. “We should have stopped. We should have stopped.”

  “Don’t!” Liz snapped at her brother. “We didn’t kill him! We hit an animal. A raccoon.”

  “You know that isn’t true, Beth,” Ty insisted. “I’m sure you remember my face against the windshield. I stared in at you. I saw you both—before you raced away and left me to die.”

  Liz spun around and ran wildly to the door.

  Ty reached it before she did and blocked her way. He stroked Liz’s cheek with one finger. She shivered.

  “That’s why I stayed so close to you,” Ty told her. “I’ve been waiting for this moment. The perfect moment for my revenge—New Year’s.”

  Bong!

  The clock chimed, startling Reenie. The first stroke of midnight.

  “It’s my turn,” Ty continued. “That’s why you two were brought back. So I could kill you. That’s why all three of us were brought back.”

  An expression of pure dread spread across Liz’s face.

  Ty grabbed her.

  Liz uttered a howl of terror.

  The clock continued to chime.

  Bong!

  Bong!

  Bong! Bong! Bong!

  Liz flailed at Ty with her fists. Tried to wriggle out of his grasp.

  But Ty held on, refusing to release her.

  “Let go of my sister!” P.J. wailed.

  He threw himself on Ty. Struggled to pull Liz from Ty’s grasp.

  Bong!

  Bong!

  Bong!

  Reenie had lost count. But she knew midnight was only moments away.

  Liz and Ty and P.J. whirled around, tugging each other as if in a mad dance.

  Faster and faster.

  Waves of icy air swept off their bodies. Reenie’s skin felt numb. Her eyes teared.

  Bong!

  Liz’s screams drowned out the clock.

  They whirled around the vicious circle, a circle of rage and revenge.

  Faster. Still faster. A ghostly whirlwind.

  A high, shrill whistle pierced Reenie’s ears.

  Louder. Shriller. Until Reenie covered both ears to shut it out.

  Then it stopped.

  And the three ghosts began to fade.

  They grew dimmer.

  Dimmer.

  Bong!

  They faded to shadows.

  Then the shadows faded to smoke.

  A spinning column of smoke.

  Bong! The clock struck twelve.

  And fell silent.

  The smoke faded. And floated away.

  Reenie and her friends stared in shocked silence.

  “They’re gone,” Greta whispered finally. “Gone.”

  Sean let out a long sigh.

  Without realizing it, they were hugging each other.

  Hugging each other tightly. Because they had survived.

  Because they were alive!

  They hugged each other in silence.

  And then Reenie turned to the spot where the ghosts had spun and whirled, had done their final dance.

  “It’s all so sad, so sad and frightening,” she said. “What more is there to say?”

  For a long moment no one answered.

  Then Sean put his arm around her and pulled her clos
e. “How about Happy New Year?” he said softly.

  About the Author

  “Where do you get your ideas?”

  That’s the question that R.L. Stine is asked most often. “I don’t know where my ideas come from,” he says. “But I do know that I have a lot more scary stories in my mind that I can’t wait to write.”

  So far, he has written over a hundred mysteries and thrillers for young people, all of them best-sellers.

  Bob grew up in Columbus, Ohio. Today he lives in an apartment near Central Park in New York City with his wife, Jane.

  Dear Readers,

  Welcome to Fear Street—where your worst nightmares live! It’s a terrifying place for Shadyside High students—and for YOU!

  Did you know that the sun never shines on the old mansions of Fear Street? No birds chirp in the Fear Street woods. And at night, eerie moans and howls ring through the tangled trees.

  I’ve written nearly a hundred Fear Street novels, and I am thrilled that millions of readers have enjoyed all the frights and I chills in the books. Wherever I go, kids ask me when I’m going to write a new Fear Street trilogy.

  Well, now I have some exciting news. I am writing a brand new Fear Street trilogy right now. The three new books are called FEAR STREET NIGHTS. The saga of Simon and Angelica Fear and the unspeakable evil they cast over the teenagers of Shadyside will continue in these new books. Yes, Simon and Angelica Fear are back to bring terror to the teens of Shadyside.

  The new FEAR STREET NIGHTS will be published Summer 2005. Don’t miss it. I’m very excited to return to Fear Street—and I hope you will be there with me for all the good, scary fun!

  It happened fast. Just a moment earlier, Chloe had been sitting with Amy and Paul on the observation deck atop Coit Tower in San Francisco. What would happen if I dropped a penny from up here? she wondered. She climbed up on the railing and dug into her jeans pocket, hunting for spare change.

  That was when she fell.

  As Chloe tumbled through the fog, all she could think was, My mother will be so upset when she finds out I skipped School…. Maybe all that stuff about you life flashing before your eyes is just bull.

  Or maybe Chloe already knew, down in the unconcious depths of her mind, that she still had eight lives to go.

  Don’t miss this hot new series from Simon Pulse:

  Published by Simon & Schuster

  the party room

  by Morgan Burke

  The party room is where all the prep school kids drink up and hook up. All you need is a fake ID and your best Juicy Couture to get in.

  One night, Samantha Byrne leaves with some guy no one’s ever seen before … and ends up dead in Central Park. Murdered gruesomely. Found at the scene of the crime: a school tie from Talcott Prep.

  New York is suddenly in the grip of a raging media frenzy. And a serial killer walks amidst Manhattan’s most privileged—and indulged—teens.

  And the party isn’t over yet….

  Last Call in June 2005!

  Published by Simon Pulse