The New Girl (Fear Street) Read online

  She hurried to catch up with him. “No. Sorry. It just slipped out.” She put a hand on his shoulder to stop him, but he pulled away in pain. “What’s the matter?”

  “I—uh—strained it, I guess.” He didn’t have the energy to tell her the truth. He wouldn’t know where to begin. “You were watching the meet?”

  “No. Not really. I got here just in time to see your bar routine.”

  “It wasn’t a bar routine. It was a clown act,” Cory said with genuine sadness.

  “Sorry,” she said. She started to pat his shoulder again but quickly thought better of it. “I came to tell you something. Something I think you’ll be interested in.” She looked tense. She was biting her lower lip.

  “Can it wait till after? Coach is gonna—”

  “It’s about Anna Corwin,” she said.

  “Tell me,” he said, tossing the towel to the floor.

  She frowned. She took both his hands and pulled him to the side of the gym. “We were at my cousin’s house last night,” she told him, leaning back against the tile wall.

  “Which cousin?”

  “What does it matter? You don’t know any of my cousins.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “My cousin had a friend over, a girl who goes to Melrose. And I was talking to her, and I asked her if she knew Anna Corwin because Anna used to go to Melrose before she transferred here.”

  “Yeah. And?”

  “Well, when I asked her about Anna, the girl got this funny look on her face. She actually went pale.”

  “Why?” Cory asked impatiently. “What did she tell you?”

  “Well, you’re not going to believe this. She said that Anna had been in her class—but that Anna was dead.”

  chapter 12

  Cory’s face filled with surprise, and then anger. “That’s not funny, Lisa. Why’d you pull me away from the meet to tell me such a stupid—”

  He started to go back, but she shoved him back against the wall. “Owwch!” His shoulders throbbed with pain.

  “Oh. Sorry. Just let me finish. It isn’t a joke. It was a terrible tragedy, my cousin’s friend said. There were rumors about Anna Corwin all over her school. No one was sure what really happened. The story was that Anna had fallen down the basement stairs in her house. She died instantly in the fall.”

  “But that’s impossible,” Cory said weakly. He thought of their kiss the night before. He felt Anna’s lips pressing so hard against his. “Totally impossible.”

  “My cousin’s friend swore that it was true,” Lisa told him. “It happened over the summer vacation, and people were still talking about it in the fall.”

  “No way,” Cory said, bending over to retrieve the towel. “I don’t believe it. I just don’t.”

  “There’s an easy way to prove it,” Lisa said. “Get dressed. Let’s go do some investigating.”

  “Are you kidding? In the middle of the meet?” He glanced nervously over to the coach. Coach Welner was unhappily engrossed in Arnie’s bar routine.

  “You’re finished anyway, aren’t you?” Lisa asked impatiently.

  “Yeah. In more ways than one,” Cory said glumly, suddenly remembering the pathetic performance he had just given. “But if Coach catches me ducking out in the middle …”

  He changed his mind. He knew he had no choice. He had to find out the truth about Anna—right away. “Okay. Meet you in the parking lot,” he said.

  Making sure that Coach Welner was still watching Arnie’s performance on the bar, Cory slipped out of the door and into the locker room, where he changed into his street clothes as quickly as he could.

  This story about Anna couldn’t be true.

  She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t!

  That wasn’t a ghost he had kissed—was it?

  He suddenly remembered the frightened look on her face the first time he had ever talked to her, when he had mentioned ghosts on Fear Street.

  No. Get real. There was no such thing as ghosts. The girl who had kissed him with such heat, such feeling, had to be alive!

  A few minutes later he had sneaked out of the building and was with Lisa in her car, heading toward the Shadyside public library. A light snow had fallen during the afternoon, covering the trees, making them look ghostlike in the gray light of evening.

  “What’s at the library?” he asked her, breaking a long silence.

  “The computer lab. They have all the local papers from all over the state on LexisNexis there. I use this room a lot to do research for articles I write for the Spectator”

  They rode the rest of the way in silence.

  At the library Lisa looked for the Melrose newspapers from four and five months before.

  About twenty minutes later she found what they were looking for. It was a newspaper article from the previous spring. Cory stared at the black type of the headline on the screen.

  ANNA CORWIN, MELROSE SOPHOMORE, DIES IN ACCIDENT

  The words to the story all blurred in Cory’s eyes. But there was a photograph that he couldn’t stop staring at. The photo was very unclear. The reproduction was too light, all in grays, as if the girl had been a ghost to begin with.

  It’s Anna, he thought. Those eyes. The blond hair. It’s Anna. He squinted into the computer, trying, to make the gray photo clearer.

  “But—how—I mean—how can you explain this?” he managed to say, still staring into the screen, his thoughts swirling crazily through his mind, thoughts of Anna, of talking to her, of touching her.

  “I can’t explain it,” Lisa said softly. “I don’t know what to say.”

  He stared at the gray photograph and then back at the bold headline.

  The question repeated endlessly in his mind …

  How could Anna Corwin be dead?

  How could Anna Corwin be dead?

  He felt her lips again, pressing so hard against his, pressing, harder, harder until his lips bled.

  How could Anna Corwin be dead?

  That night Cory was too restless to do anything. He tried catching up on some of his homework, but he couldn’t concentrate. At eight-thirty he sneaked out of the house and drove around town for a while. There were small patches of white along the sides of the roads and dotting the lawns, remnants of the light snowfall earlier in the day.

  He drove around aimlessly, making the same circle through North Hills, down past the high school, across Canyon Road, and then back up again. But he knew all along where he would end up.

  On Fear Street.

  He parked at the curb in front of the Conwins’ yard and stared up at the rambling house. The sky above it was red, casting down an eerie light that made the old house look unreal, like the set of a horror movie.

  The inside of the house was completely dark, as usual. A shutter on the side banged noisily in the wind. A dim light went on in an upstairs window. Cory stared at it, unable to see anyone moving inside, and in a minute or so the light flickered out.

  He heard a noise behind him, a loud bark. In the rearview mirror he saw the large black Doberman bearing down on the car, galloping like a horse across the dark street. The neighbor in the gray sticker was close behind.

  There he is again, Cory thought. Do he and the dog prowl Fear Street all night? Are they ghosts too?

  The Ghostly Guards, he thought. They’ve been assigned to keep people from discovering the truth about Fear Street—from discovering that everyone who lives on Fear Street is DEAD!

  He shook his head hard, trying to shake away the ridiculous thoughts. Then he frantically started the engine and pressed his foot all the way down on the gas pedal. In the rearview mirror he could see the man and the dog pull up short, startled by his fast getaway.

  He drove straight home and hurried up to bed. He fell asleep quickly and dreamed about a gymnastics meet. He was up on the rings and realized he didn’t know how to get down. Everyone was staring at him, waiting for him to move. But he just couldn’t remember how to do it.

  He was awakened by s
omeone touching his face.

  He sat up in bed, grateful that the dream was interrupted. The hand slid down his cheek again. He blinked himself awake.

  Anna!

  She was on his bed. She sat beside him, her blue eyes staring down into his.

  “What are you doing here? How did you get in?” he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper still filled with sleep.

  “Take care of me, Cory. Please,” she pleaded, looking frightened and forlorn. She touched his cheek again. She brushed her lips against his forehead.

  “Anna—”

  She pressed her face against his.

  He couldn’t believe this was happening. She was alone with him. In his bedroom. He wanted another kiss. He desperately wanted another kiss like the one in the car.

  “Anna—” He reached up for her. He wanted to pull her down on top of him.

  She smiled at him. Her soft hair brushed over his face.

  “Anna—why did your family say you were dead?”

  She didn’t seem at all surprised or upset by the question. “I am dead,” she whispered in his ear. “I am dead, Cory. But you can still take care of me.”

  “What do you mean?” He suddenly felt very frightened. She looked very ghostly now, pale and transparent. Her eyes burned into his. They weren’t friendly eyes. They were menacing eyes, evil eyes.

  “What do you mean?” he repeated, unable to keep the fear from his voice.

  “You can die too,” she whispered. “Then we can be together.

  “No!” he cried, pushing her away, “No—I don’t want to!”

  The phone was ringing.

  He sat up and looked around.

  No Anna. It had been a dream. It had all been a dream.

  But it had seemed so real.

  The phone was real. He looked at his desk clock. It was a little after midnight. He grabbed up the receiver.

  “Hello, Cory?” A whispered voice. Anna’s voice.

  “Hi, Anna,” he whispered back.

  “Cory—come quickly. Please! You’ve got to come! Please! But don’t park by my house! I’ll meet you in front of that burned-out old mansion. Hurry, Cory! You’re the only one I can turn to!”

  chapter 13

  He held on to the phone long after she had hung up. He needed to know that it was real, that he wasn’t dreaming this too.

  Yes. She had really called him. She was real. She was alive.

  Should he go? Did he have a choice?

  He thought of her sitting so close to him in the car, pressing her face against his, kissing him, kissing him, kissing him.

  Of course he had to go!

  She needed him.

  And he needed … to ask her all the questions that were in his mind, to find out the truth about her once and for all.

  He got dressed in seconds, turned off the desk lamp, and started to sneak silently down the stairs. He was halfway down when his parents’ bedroom door opened, and his father lumbered out into the dark hallway. “Cory—is that you?”

  He had to answer. If he didn’t, his dad would think it was a burglar. “Yeah, Dad. It’s me,” he whispered.

  “What’s the matter? What are you doing?”

  Think fast, Cory. Think fast. “Uh … I’m just going down for a snack. I woke up ‘cause I was hungry.”

  His father grunted, accepting the story. “Thought I heard the phone ring,” he said, yawning.

  “Yeah. It was a wrong number,” Cory said.

  He waited until he heard his father go back in and close the bedroom door. He waited another minute or two. Then he crept silently down the rest of the stairs and out the front door.

  It was even colder than the first night he had sneaked out, but there was no wind at all. The ground felt hard and frosty beneath his sneakers. The moon was hidden behind thick clouds. Again, he let the car roll down the drive, then started it on the street.

  Mill Road was as dark and empty as before. Cory stared at the curving white line in the center of the narrow road and thought about Anna.

  Was she really in trouble this time? She sounded very frightened, very frantic. What could the problem be? Was she afraid to tell him?

  Or did she just want to see him? If so, why could she see him only in the middle of the night? And why couldn’t he park near her house? Why did she have to meet him in front of Simon Fear’s creepy old mansion?

  He thought of the disturbing dream he had just had about her. And the photo in the newspaper article flashed into his mind. He forced himself not to think about that. He wanted to kiss her again. And again.

  This was so exciting!

  He turned onto Fear Street and stopped in front of the burned-out mansion. Across the street the cemetery lay dark and still. He turned off the headlights. The blackness enveloped him. He couldn’t see a thing. He suddenly felt as if the blackness had walled him off from the rest of the world, as if he had entered a black tunnel, an endless black tunnel, a tunnel leading to …

  He turned around to look out the back window for her. No sign of her. Nothing moved. The trees, black shadows against the blacker sky, could have been painted on a backdrop.

  He rolled down the window and breathed the frigid air. He looked for her in the rearview mirror. She still wasn’t coming. He reached for the door handle to get out of the car. But remembering the huge Doberman, he decided against it.

  It was too cold with the window down. He rolled it back up. Where was she? He held his wrist up to check the time, but he had forgotten to put on his watch. He turned again and peered out the back window. Only blackness.

  Despite the cold, his palms were hot and sweaty. He coughed. His throat felt tight and dry. He couldn’t sit still any longer. He was too nervous.

  He pushed open the door and climbed out. He closed the door quickly so no one could see the light. He listened for the neighbor and his vicious four-legged companion. The Ghostly Guards. Silence.

  “This must be what it’s like on the moon,” he told himself. So quiet. So still. So … unreal. The insistent theme music from The Twilight Zone ran through his mind.

  Where was she?

  He started to walk down the long block toward her house. The air was cold and wet, so wet it seemed to cling to him as he walked. He stopped at the edge of her driveway and looked up at the old house.

  Dark. Completely dark.

  Or was it? Was that a sliver of light escaping from beneath a second-story window blind?

  Someone was awake in there. Was it Anna?

  Was she waiting for the right moment to sneak out and come down to him? Was someone keeping her from making her escape?

  Brad.

  Crazy Brad.

  He shuddered as a chill ran through his body. He decided to go back and wait in the car. The street was so dark, he couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him. The only sounds were his footsteps as he trudged over the gravelly road. Finally he climbed into the car and closed the door. It wasn’t much warmer inside. He slid down low in the seat, pulling his head down into his jacket, trying to warm up.

  Where was she?

  He stared at the windshield, watching it frost up from his breath.

  Was he shivering from the cold? Or from the fact that he was starting to worry about her?

  Maybe something terrible had happened to her. Maybe she had called him because she knew she was in danger—and he hadn’t come soon enough.

  Staring at the opaque layers of steam on the windshield, Cory’s ideas grew wilder and wilder. Maybe Brad was holding Anna prisoner in that house. She had said that Brad was dangerous. That was the very word she had used. Dangerous. Maybe she wanted Cory to help her escape from Brad. Only Brad had found out about her plan, and he had—he had—what?

  He pushed open the door and jumped out. He looked back down the block toward her house. She wasn’t coming. His breath was forming curtains of smoke in front of him. He realized he was breathing very rapidly, and his heart was pounding.

  Where was she?
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  He had no choice. He had to go to her house. He had to make sure she was okay.

  She had called him for help, and all he had done was sit in his car trying to stay warm. Some help.

  He began jogging to her house, his sneakers thudding loudly over the hard ground, the only sound beside his gasping breaths. He turned up the gravel drive and picked up speed. Looking up, he saw the thin sliver of light in the upstairs bedroom.

  The ground tilted and swayed. He forced himself to keep jogging steadily. Up on the porch now. Then he was ringing the bell, forgetting that it was broken. Then he was knocking on the door, first a normal knock, then, when no one answered, as hard as he could.

  Where was she?

  What were they doing to her?

  The door swung open. Brad, looking sleepy and puffy-eyed, stepped quickly out onto the porch, nearly knocking Cory over backward. His little eyes opened briefly with surprise, then narrowed as anger spread over his pink face.

  “You—” he said, and turned his face as if to spit.

  Cory tried to say something, but he was too out of breath.

  “What do you want now?” Brad asked, leaning menacingly over Cory. “What are you doing here?”

  “Anna called me—” Cory managed to get out.

  Brad’s face filled with rage. He reached out and grabbed the front of Cory’s jacket. “Are you trying to torture me?” he screamed. “Is this some kind of cruel prank?”

  Cory tried to pull away, but Brad’s grip was surprisingly strong. “Wait. I—”

  “I told you—” Brad screamed at the top of his lungs, “ANNA IS DEAD! ANNA IS DEAD! Why can’t you believe me?”

  He was pulling Cory’s jacket so hard, Cory was having trouble breathing. In a desperate attempt to free himself, Cory brought both hands up and smashed them down against Brad’s forearms.

  Brad let go. Cory started to back away.

  This seemed to enrage Brad even more. He grabbed Cory by the jacket front again and started dragging him. He pulled him through the open front door and into the house. “Now I’m going to get rid of you once and for all,” Brad said.