Stinetinglers--All New Stories by the Master of Scary Tales Read online

  “Well…” I took another deep breath. “If you ever need a babysitter…”

  They both blinked. The man squinted hard at me, as if studying me.

  The woman smiled for the first time. “Would you really like to come and babysit our little monsters?”

  I laughed. “My little brother and sister are monsters, too,” I said. “So I have experience. And I really like little kids.”

  “Let me get them,” the woman said. She pushed open the heavy front door and disappeared inside.

  The man scratched the side of his face with one hand and continued to stare at me. He started to say something, but then stopped. I decided he must be shy.

  The woman appeared a few seconds later, pushing two kids in front of her. She kept a hand on their shoulders as if holding them in place. They were both as pale as the parents.

  The girl wore a dark blue jumper over black tights. Her straight black hair fell loosely down her back. The boy had on a floppy black T-shirt and black shorts. I guessed that the girl was the older one. But they were both small for their age.

  “This is Gorm,” the woman said, tapping the girl’s shoulder. “And this is Garg.” She patted the boy.

  “Strange names,” I blurted out.

  “They’re old family names,” the woman said.

  “What’s your name?” the little girl demanded.

  “Becka,” I answered.

  “Strange name,” she said. Her brother laughed.

  “Would you like Becka to come stay with you some night?” the mother asked.

  “No!” both kids declared at once.

  “Of course you do,” the father spoke up in his whispery voice. He turned to me. “They’re both very shy around strangers.”

  “No we’re not,” Gorm said.

  I laughed. “Gorm, I think we’re going to be good friends,” I said, flashing her a warm smile.

  I’m not sure exactly what happened next.

  I’m pretty sure I imagined it. I saw a black spot move on the floor of the stoop. A big spider. And I’m not sure, but I think I saw Garg reach down and pick the spider up between his fingers—and pop it into his mouth.

  I blinked a few times. It was shadowy on the porch because of the storm clouds up above. But I did see the little boy chewing something, chewing pretty hard, and I’m pretty sure it was the spider.

  These kids might be trouble, I thought.

  But I reminded myself how desperate I was to have a job.

  “Becka, can you come babysit them tomorrow night?” the woman asked.

  “Yes,” I replied. “No problem.”

  * * *

  “I’m warning you, don’t smear that peanut butter on me!”

  The next afternoon, Izzy and I were watching the twins until my parents returned home from grocery shopping. As always, their idea of fun was making a mess.

  Sean giggled like a mad fiend and raised the glob of peanut butter in front of my face. “Dare me?”

  “No. I don’t dare you!” I cried. “I’m warning you—”

  Smussh. He slapped the peanut butter onto my forehead. I let out an angry cry. Sean and Chloe tossed back their heads and laughed as if it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen.

  I grabbed the sticky blob off my forehead and tossed it at Sean. He dodged to the side, and it flew onto the carpet. Now it was Chloe’s turn to come at me with a handful of peanut butter.

  I tried to grab her, but she was too fast for me. “Not my hair! Not my hair!” I screamed.

  She shot her hand forward and rubbed it down the side of my hair. I screamed again, jumped to my feet, and shoved her away.

  Izzy sat across the room with her phone in her hands. “Becka, how can you even think of babysitting?” she demanded. “These twins should be arrested and kept in prison for life.”

  I ran to the kitchen to get a wet paper towel to try to wipe the peanut butter from my hair. “I don’t think the other kids will be this much trouble,” I said. “They seem very shy and quiet.”

  Izzy tsk-tsked. “You’re in major trouble. You should bring a dog crate with you to use as a cage. Just in case.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Very funny. Know what? I’m glad you’re not coming along.”

  I screamed as Sean sank his teeth into my wrist. “No biting! No biting!” I cried. “Remember—I can bite back!”

  * * *

  The evening sun was sinking behind the trees when I showed up at the Butcher House for my job. I was surprised to see the house completely dark, no lights on anywhere.

  The floorboards on the front stoop creaked as I walked up to the front door. It swung open before I could knock. The woman smiled at me. Her pale face was gray in the dim light. She wore a loose black sweater over a long black skirt.

  She held the door open, and I slipped past her into the front room. “Right on time,” she said. “Thank you for coming.”

  It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. I saw a few large cartons piled in the center of the room. Otherwise, the room was completely bare.

  “Our furniture hasn’t arrived,” she said, reading my thoughts. “We are trying to track it down. It might be lost.”

  “Whoa. That’s too bad,” I murmured.

  I heard footsteps on the bare floorboards. The man appeared from a back room. He was also dressed in black. He had a black baseball cap pulled low on his forehead.

  “Hello, Becka,” he said. “The kids are waiting for you in the playroom.” He pointed to a door near the back hall.

  “Awesome,” I said. “I think we’re going to have fun.”

  They didn’t reply to that.

  “When is their bedtime?” I asked.

  They both shrugged. “Whenever,” the man said.

  “You’ll know when it’s time to put them down,” the woman added.

  I nodded. “Well … okay. No worries. Have a nice evening.”

  “You too.” They started to the front door.

  “Do you want to leave me a phone number so I could reach you if I have to?” I asked.

  “We don’t have our phones yet,” the woman said.

  “No problem. When will you be back?” I asked.

  They exchanged glances. “It’s a full moon tonight,” the man answered. “So we’ll be out till after midnight.”

  Huh? What does that mean?

  The door closed behind them before I could ask.

  I found the two kids down on the floor in the middle of the next room. It was as bare as the front room. No furniture at all. A floor lamp against one wall gave off pale yellow light.

  Garg and Gorm were dressed alike in gray T-shirts and shorts. They were on their knees, each holding a blue helium balloon on a string.

  “Hey, guys,” I called as I walked over to them. “What’s up?”

  They stared back at me and didn’t reply.

  “Remember me? I’m Becka,” I said.

  Garg lowered his eyes to the floor. Gorm continued to stare at me. “We know,” she said softly.

  It’s going to be hard to get a conversation going with these two, I thought.

  “Tell me, guys,” I said, “have you had dinner?”

  “Not yet,” Gorm replied.

  “Not yet?” I repeated. “Well, what are you going to have for dinner?”

  “You,” Garg said. They both laughed, chirpy little laughs.

  “No. Really,” I said.

  “Really,” Garg replied, and they both laughed again.

  Better change the subject, Becka, I told myself. I pointed to their balloons. “Are you playing a game with those?”

  Gorm swept back her straight black hair. “No. We’re not playing a game.”

  “We’re just hitting each other with them,” Garg said. He swung the string and bounced his balloon off Gorm’s head. She swung back and bumped her balloon over Garg’s face.

  “That isn’t much fun,” I said. “Do you know how to play volleyball with a balloon? We could bat it back and fort
h—”

  “We don’t want to,” Garg said. He swung the string again and bounced the balloon off his sister’s head.

  “Oh!” they both cried out as the string slipped from Garg’s hand. The balloon floated up. He grabbed for the string and missed. The three of us watched his balloon hit the ceiling high above us.

  Garg made a pouty face and beat his fists against the floor.

  “Oh, wow. Too bad,” I said. I gazed up at the balloon bouncing lightly against the ceiling. “Do you have a ladder? Maybe I could climb up and get it.”

  “We don’t need a ladder,” Garg said. He jumped to his feet and walked to the wall. Then he did a backflip until his shoes were flat against the wall.

  And he walked up the side of the wall!

  I let out a startled cry. “How did you do that? Come down! Come down, Garg! You’ll fall on your head!”

  Gorm laughed. She flipped herself sideways and walked up the wall. She joined her brother on the ceiling. He grabbed his balloon. Then they both lowered themselves—and hung by their legs, upside down from the high rafter.

  “Come down!” I shrieked. “Come down—now!”

  “Come up here and make us!” Gorm shouted.

  “I can’t!” I told her. “I can’t climb walls. How did you do that?”

  They both laughed in reply. “Come down,” I repeated. “Let’s play another game. Let’s play something more fun.”

  They whispered to each other. Then they both swung off the rafter and walked down the wall.

  “Whew.” I breathed a sigh of relief. What if one of them had fallen?

  They joined me in the middle of the floor. “We know a good game,” Garg said.

  Gorm nodded. “It’s called Bite-Bite.”

  “Never heard of it,” I said. “How do you play it?”

  “I told you, we didn’t have dinner,” Garg said, bumping up close to me.

  “So Bite-Bite is a good game to play,” his sister added.

  “Huh?” I squinted at them.

  “It’s easy to play,” Garg said. “We just bite you.”

  “You’re joking, right?” I said. I pushed him away. “You kids are weird.”

  “Yes, we’re weird,” Gorm agreed.

  Then I uttered a cry as the two of them started to change. Their eyes turned red and bulged until they poked out like Ping-Pong balls. Their noses stretched into long snouts. Thick brown fur sprouted over their faces. And curled, yellow fangs dropped from their open mouths.

  Their chests heaved in and out, and they started to make animal grunts. Drool oozed down their yellow fangs.

  “No!” I screamed. “No! No! Noooo! Your parents didn’t lie. You really ARE little monsters!”

  They both snapped their teeth at me. I tried to back away, but I was trapped. Uttering low growls, they snapped again.

  “Stop!” I cried. “Stop! When your parents get home, I’m going to tell them you didn’t behave.”

  Both little monsters tossed back their fur-covered heads and laughed.

  “Wh-what’s so funny?” I stammered.

  “They’re not coming home,” Garg grunted. “They’re never coming back.”

  “Huh? No—” I started.

  “They’re not our parents,” Gorm said. “They couldn’t wait to escape. They brought you here so they could get away.”

  “No! No way—!” I gasped.

  “They told you we were little monsters, but you didn’t listen,” Gorm growled.

  “Now we’re very hungry,” Garg said. “Sorry, but we have to play serious Bite-Bite!”

  Grunting and snapping their teeth, they moved in on me. I had my back pressed against the wall. Nowhere to move. I jerked my arm away just as Garg leaped up to bite me.

  “I—I’m warning you—” I cried. “I bite back!”

  They both laughed ugly, deep laughs. Garg jumped again and nipped my elbow.

  “Ouch! Okay—that’s it for you two!” I shouted.

  I let out a roar and swept a hand back over my head. I felt my jaws begin to slide forward. It took only a second for my alligator-long snout to stretch. I tested my four rows of jagged teeth.

  I roared again as curled claws poked from my growing hands, and the fur sprouted over my face, my arms, my legs.

  Garg and Gorm uttered startled cries. They tried to back away, but I was too fast for them. With an animal bleat of triumph, I clamped my alligator jaws over both of them—caught them both at once—and bit down hard.

  * * *

  At home, I introduced Gorm and Garg to our little monsters, Chloe and Sean. The four of them leaped on one another, growling and nipping, rolling around and wrestling like little monsters love to do.

  Mom picked up the new arrivals in her giant paws and petted them tenderly. She rolled her three eyes. “Two more mouths to feed tonight,” she murmured. “That’s a lot of raw meat.”

  Then Mom turned to me. “Becka, do me a favor,” she said. “Don’t take any more babysitting jobs.”

  SKIN

  Once, at an animal preserve in Tucson, I watched a snake shed its skin. The snake slithered right out as if it was taking off a winter coat. The skin had been a part of the creature, and now it was just a long, paper-thin crusty thing I could see through.

  That image stayed with me a long time.

  Lots of scary stories have been written about snakes. But I’ve never read a story about their skin. And then I suddenly had this story idea about a boy and his skin.

  My dad always says, “You can be whoever you want to be.” I’m Freddy Baker, and right now, I want to be the best thirteen-year-old basketball player in history.

  I know. That’s never going to happen. But it’s good to have big goals, don’t you think? Right now, right at this moment, I’m dribbling down the gym floor, feeling confident, feeling like I have it all.

  My middle school team, the Rattlers, is down by only one point, and there’s twenty seconds left in the game. Everyone on the bleachers is screaming, on their feet, jumping up and down. The bleachers are actually bouncing, and the sound of the screams and cheers rings off the high gym ceiling.

  Everyone knows I’m going to drive into the paint and end the game with an easy layup, and the Red Hawks will lose with no time left. Baker the Playmaker wins another game for the Rattlers, and it’s on to the state championship game in Grover City.

  Here I go, dodging the red uniforms, sliding away from two slapping hands, thundering toward the basket. Here’s my winning shot. I can hear the screams and cries grow louder.

  Oh, wow. No. Oh no.

  My hand—it slipped. The ball sailed off. It hit the bottom of the backboard and bounced out of bounds.

  The screams stopped as if someone had clicked off the volume. Groans and moans drowned out the final buzzer.

  I missed. We lost. We lost the game to the Red Hawks because my hand slipped. Baker the Playmaker is a loser today.

  The Red Hawk guys are celebrating, bumping high-fives and jumping up and down, chest bumps and a lot of roaring. I follow my guys off the floor. The sweat feels cold on my face. I keep my head down. I don’t want to see my teammates. I let them down.

  My friend Jackson jumps up from the bottom row of the bleachers. He walks over and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, there’s one more game next week,” he says. “Not your fault, Freddy.”

  Of course it’s my fault. I blew the easy shot. I brush Jackson’s hand off my shoulder and slump into the locker room.

  Almost silent in here. I hear the slam of lockers and water dribbling in the shower room. I slump onto a bench and wait for my breathing to slow to normal. I’m drenched in cold sweat, but I don’t feel like taking a shower. A few guys nod at me, but the others are definitely avoiding me.

  How did the ball slip like that? I raise my shooting hand and examine it.

  Whoa. Weird. The skin feels loose.

  I move it around with my other hand. The skin on my fingers definitely feels loose, as if it doesn’t fit my
hand anymore. Maybe I’m dehydrated, I tell myself. I have to drink more water.

  I found Jackson waiting for me in front of the playground. He saw the upset look on my face. “Don’t get down, Freddy,” he said. “You scored twenty-two points, more than anyone else in the game.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. I’m not a crier. I never cry. So why was my voice breaking up?

  Jackson gave me a shove toward the street. “Let’s go. Grow up,” he said.

  I pushed back. “Do you know how helpful you’re being? Not helpful.”

  He tossed his hands up. “Okay, okay. So you weren’t Baker the Playmaker today. So—”

  “I was Baker the Game Loser,” I groaned. “It doesn’t even rhyme.”

  That made him laugh. “Well … nothing rhymes with Jackson,” he said. “That’s why I don’t play basketball.”

  “You don’t play basketball because you’re a total klutz,” I said.

  “That too,” he said. “I told Melody we’d meet her at your parents’ place.”

  My parents own a little lunch diner two blocks from the school where a lot of kids hang out. It’s tiny. It has a long counter with stools and four booths against the wall.

  There’s an ancient Pac-Man arcade game at the back that belonged to my grandfather. It sends a constant ping ping ping sound over the tiny place.

  Melody was waiting for us at the counter with a pink smoothie in a tall glass in front of her. She was wearing a red-and-yellow Rattlers jersey and a short gray skirt over black leggings.

  She turned when Jackson and I walked in. Her dark hair was tied behind her in a red scrunchie. Melody has narrow dark eyes that always seem to be studying you.

  Jackson and I dropped down on stools on either side of her. The booths were filled with kids, and a group of teenagers huddled around the Pac-Man machine in back.

  “Why weren’t you at the game?” I asked.

  “I didn’t want to watch you lose,” she replied.

  “Ooh, that’s cold!” Jackson cried. “That’s seriously cold.”

  “How’d you know we lost?” I demanded.

  “Actually, I was there,” Melody said. She took a long sip on the straw. “I didn’t think you’d want to talk about it.”