Creeperz: Five Terrifying Tales

Creeperz:

  Five Terrifying Tales

  By Rusty Fischer, author of Zombies Don’t Cry

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  Creeperz

  Copyright 2014 by Rusty Fischer

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  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Cover credit: © James Thew – Fotolia.com

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  Author’s Note:

  The following is a short story collection edited by the author himself. If you see any glaring mistakes, I apologize and hope you don’t take it out on my poor characters, who had nothing to do with their author’s bad grammar! Happy reading… and Happy Halloween!

  Enjoy!

  * * * * *

  Introduction:

  Jeeperz Creeperz…

  Halloween is a special time of year, when it’s okay to be scared, and even MORE okay to be… scary! And that’s just what you’ll get in this creepy little volume for middle grades: scares enough to last you all year long, but especially during the extra “creepy” month of October.

  “Creeperz” is a collection of five spooky short stories, featuring deserted graveyards, evil eyes, wicked curses, the living dead, were-squirrels and more. All your favorites are here, in short, bite-sized doses just perfect for reading out loud around the classroom, the campfire, the living room or beneath the covers when you’re supposed to be sleeping.

  So sit back, turn on all the lights and scare yourself silly. “Creeperz” is perfect for Halloween reading, or any time of the year. As long as you’re in the mood to be scared, I’m in the mood to be… scary! So let’s not wait another minute: your first “Creeper” awaits!

  Happy Halloween,

  Rusty

  * * * * *

  Story # 1:

  Sticky Fingers

  It all started because Grover Meeks, Jr. said we were too old to go trick or treating...

  “Eleven is NOT too old for trick or treating,” I argued, but it didn’t really matter. By then we’d waited too long to buy our costumes anyway and now all the good ones were gone, leaving only sexy kittens and lame superheroes on the drug store shelves.

  “Ten is the cutoff point for trick or treating,” Grover said with a superior grin as we walked out of Sullivan’s Thrift Shop on Poplar Street.

  “Says who?”

  “Says Sylvia,” he said, quoting his older sister, who was in high school and therefore, according to Sylvia and Grover anyway, knew everything about everything, including imaginary cutoff dates for trick or treating.

  “So how are we going to majorly munch on candy, Grover?” I whined, shoving my hands deeper into the pockets of my hoodie. “It’s Halloween, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Grover grumbled, patting the large belly underneath his black and orange “This IS My Costume” T-shirt.

  Just then a bell jingled nearby and we both turned to watch an older woman coming out of the convenience store across the street. Grover looked at me then, eyes round and cheeks rosy, and I knew he was up to no good.

  Sure enough, he started dragging me across the street with him. “We’ll get our Halloween candy the old fashioned way,” he said, holding up his hands and wriggling the five chubby fingers on each. “With our sticky fingers!”

  “Come on, Grover,” I groaned as he literally dragged me across the street. (Did I mention Grover was four inches taller and outweighed me by 50 pounds?) “This… this is a really bad idea.”

  He turned to me, right there in the middle of the street. “It’s Halloween, Chester. The very night for bad ideas!”

  I dunno, man, that kind of logic is hard to beat. It was Halloween, it was getting late and, well, if you run a convenience store you kinda have to figure kids are going do stupid things every October 31st.

  So in we went, the old guy behind the counter giving us the evil eye up and down every aisle. No, I mean it; THE evil eye. He only had one showing, the other hidden behind a black patch, like a pirate.

  “Here,” Grover said, way too loud, shoving a hand full of candy in my direction. “Put these in your pockets.”

  “You put them in your pockets,” I hissed, hearing the old guy’s chair squeak behind the counter. “This was your idea. Why am I always doing your dirty work?”

  “Chill,” Grover squealed, chubby cheeks red, forehead sweating. “You’ll get us in trouble and then—”

  “Can I help you?” the old man grumbled from the end of the aisle, wobbling on a cane and making me feel bad that we made him get up out of his chair.

  “No sir,” Grover said in his best “I’m talking to grown-ups, let me handle this” voice. “Just browsing.”

  “Well, make it snappy,” the man growled, turning and limping back to the counter. “I’m about to close.”

  “Perfect,” Grover whispered about as loud as the man had just growled. “Quick, while his back is turned…”

  And I shoved the candy as deep as it would go, in every pocket, front, back, side, wherever it would fit, in it went. And then we turned and ran toward the door, about as subtle as a zombie licking his lips at a funeral.

  “Hey, wait!” the old man called, waving his cane just by the front door. “Stop!”

  Grover managed to squeeze by, somehow, clanging the bell over the door. But not me. Never me. I never get away with anything. Ever.

  The old man’s hand gripped my arm and he stared at me with his one good eye. “Empty your pockets,” he said, breath smelling of garlic and onions, and plenty of both. “Or I’ll call the cops.”

  I stood, frozen in his grip, Grover standing just outside the door, waving me on. “I… I’m sorry,” I said, dumping handfuls of candy on the counter. “I… don’t know what I was thinking. Can… can I pay for some of it?”

  And I could. That’s the whole thing: I could have bought some stupid candy, if only I’d thought of it. I still had about seven dollars left from my weekly allowance. But Grover had this power over me, and once he got jazzed on an idea, like I said, it was hard to say “no” to the big guy.

  “Too late, boy,” the old man said with a leering smile, garlic breath washing over my face. “I’ve got you now, but it’s Halloween, so I’ll take mercy.”

  “You will?” I asked hopefully.

  He nodded, though his smile was far from kind. “Yes, boy. I’ll give you two choices.”

  “W-w-what are they?” I asked.

  “You can stand here while I call the cops,” he began solemnly, garlic breath punctuating every word, “or you can apologize and take your candy and walk right out the door.”

  “What… wait… what?” I was confused. “What kind of choice is that?”

  He shrugged. “A Halloween choice,” he explained.

  I reached for the candy, hardly believing my good luck. “Great,” I said, imagining the look on Grover’s face when he saw me strut through the door, pockets full of candy. “Well, Happy Halloween!”

  I turned, reaching for the door, when he stopped me once more. I turned to find that he’d flipped up his pirate patch and was staring back at me with a single twisted, glowing, yellow eye.

  “Happy Halloween,” he cackled, the eye flashing with an unnatural light as I stood, frozen in place. “And remember, boy, you are what you eat!”

  I choked on a scream and tore through the door, not stopping until I was in some back alley nearly a block away. I stood there, shaking, until Grover caught up to me. When he did, he was panting and sweating some more. (Grover’s kind of a sweater!)

  “What gives?” he asked, wheezing. “Wha
t happened back there?”

  I shook off the old man’s evil eye and showed off my haul. “He let me go,” I bragged, handing him half the loot even though he totally didn’t deserve it.

  “Just like that?” Grover asked suspiciously.

  I shrugged. “Yeah, the old man told me ‘Happy Halloween’ and sent me packing…” I neglected to tell Grover about the glowing yellow eye because he’d only want to go back and see it for himself and… no thanks!

  “Great,” he said with a shrug, unwrapping a giant Minty Bar and shoving it in his mouth. “Awesome!”

  I reached for my first candy, unaware it would seal my fate, whatever it might be. If I’d reached for a Mallo-Bar, I might have still been able to walk. If I’d reached for a Choco-Stuff, I might have still been able to reach. But no, me and my big sweet tooth, I just had to reach for the first Crackle Crisp I saw.

  It was green and hard and sour and sweet, my favorite, and I popped it in my mouth, tasting the ripe, green apple sweetness right away as it dissolved on my greedy little tongue.

  “Do you hear that?” Grover asked over the sound of his own chewing.

  I didn’t hear anything, but I sure felt something. It was like my feet were itching right through their socks… and shoes. “No, what?” I asked, green sweetness filling every taste bud on my tongue as I worked that Crackle Crisp around my whole mouth, chewing up and sucking down every ounce of sweet green apple sugary goodness.

  Grover swallowed and said, “It sounds like… crackling.”

  Suddenly I felt a sharp pinch in my knee, like a bee sting, and looked down, nearly fainting.

  “G-G-Grover,” I stammered. “L-l-look.”

  He looked down and saw what I did: my shoes and socks had turned… green. A hard, stiff, glowing green, just like the piece of sticky sour apple candy I’d plopped in my mouth.

  “Chester!” he cried, but I could hardly hear him over the sound of my body crackling as my ankles, my knees, my thighs all turned a bright, neon candy green. “What… what’s happening to you?!?!”

  I could hardly hear him now, what with my body crackling as bones turned to sugar and skin turned to candy and every inch of me began turning hard and stiff and green.

  My voice came out think and syrupy as I stammered, “I-I-I think…I think that old dude cursed me with his evil eye!”

  “What evil eye?” Grover asked, looking over his shoulder and I knew, even with me standing in front of him, turning into a giant piece of sour apple Crackle Crisp, he was still more interested in checking out that evil eye.

  “The old guy flipped up his pirate patch before I left,” I said, heart pounding as my stomach crackled and crunched into a hard, tight candy green. “I think… I think he cursed me or something!”

  Grover dropped his candy, reaching for me. “Don’t!” I said, but it was too late. He tapped my side, just barely, and the crack could be heard halfway to Transylvania.

  It was like a ripple effect, cracks forming all over my candy body, my fingers falling off and dropping to the sidewalk where they shattered into a million tiny green, glowing pieces.

  My elbow was next, then my kneecap as I slid to the ground. My chest was still crackling and crunching, my neck and head still human… but not for long.

  “Help me, Grover!” I gurgled as my tongue started to crystallize into a triangle of green sugar.

  His face was dripping with sweat as he knelt to the ground. “How?” he asked, crying, blubbering, big drops of water spilling onto his chubby cheeks. “What do I do, Chester?”

  But I could no longer talk. The candy curse had turned my lungs into spun sugar, my throat into green candy crystals. I choked on them, gasping for air that tasted as sweet and soft as green apples in the sunshine or cotton candy at the fair.

  And the last thing I saw, before my eyes turned to green balls in my head and my hair crackled off the top of my head, was Grover, reaching down, eager to plop a piece of me in his mouth.

  After all, it was Halloween…

  * * * * *

  Story # 2:

  Pumpkin Face

  It all started because Cara Worthington wanted to be a model…

  We were sitting there, lounging around in her all-pink bedroom on a lazy Saturday morning when she suddenly shot up like a jumping bean, nearly knocking over the nightstand by her bed.

  “What is it?” I asked from deep within her fuzzy pink Papasan chair. “Spider? Lizard?”

  Cara shook her head, batting her thick lashes and slipping a lock of red hair behind one ear. “An opportunity!” she squealed, getting up and dancing around the room dramatically.

  I barely noticed. Cara was always doing stuff like that: prancing around the room, squealing out in the middle of lunch in the cafeteria, crying at the drop of a hat – but only when people were looking, of course.

  We’d been friends ever since she moved across the street from me back in kindergarten. Now we were in fifth grade at Nightshade Elementary School and Cara was no closer to being a supermodel – or a singer or an actress or a ballerina – than ever.

  “No, I mean… an opportunity for you.”

  “Me?”

  She cleared her throat and read from the Classified ads: “Models wanted. Males only, exotic features, untraditional appearance… open call at the Nightshade Galleria from noon until 4 PM…”

  Her voice trailed off, she let the paper fall to the floor and she stood in front of me, eyes wide: “Today!”

  I shook my head sternly. “You’re the one who wants to be a model, Cara. Look at me, who would want to take a picture of this face other than National Geographic or Ripley’s Believe It or Not?!?!”

  It’s true: I have a round head. Like, really round. Like, Charlie Brown round. Like… basketball or soccer ball round. Not exactly male model material here, trust me.

  “That’s just it, Ralph,” she insisted, yanking me out of her fluffy pink chair. “Didn’t you hear the ad… exotic, untraditional… they might as well have written this just for you!”

  I went along with it mostly because I was bored, mostly because we had nothing else to do, mostly because it was a Saturday and mostly because it beat sitting around in Cara’s big pink room for the rest of the day.

  The Nightshade Galleria was busy as we locked up our bikes and hustled inside, Cara clutching the wrinkled page of Classified ads as if it was the map to a buried treasure.

  We passed by the food court and the bookstore, the indoor putt-putt course and the jewelry shop and were running out of stores to pass by when finally we saw a little white door marked “B-214.”

  Underneath the door number was taped a sheet of white copy paper that read, “Open Call Inside.”

  Cara stood before it, face crumpling a little for the first time. “Hmm,” she said, hand under her chin. “That’s not how they usually do it.”

  “How do they usually do it?” I asked, stifling a yawn.

  She looked at me, still frowning. It was a face I wasn’t quite used to; Cara always wore a smile. Always. “Just… not like this,” she said. Then she brightened, put on her best “Teamwork makes the dream work” face and opened the door.

  Inside was a bored looking woman sitting next to a bored looking man at a cheap fold up picnic table, the kind my Dad always used to drag out when extra people were coming over for the holidays.

  There were several folding chairs lined up against the wall, and a few kids with “exotic” faces and “untraditional” looks sitting in them, mostly next to a bored looking father or mother with similar, just older features.

  The faces behind the picnic table brightened when we walked in, and I figured it was because Cara has won about 500 beauty pageants since I’ve known her, and another 500 before that.

  “Hi,” she said, sashaying up to the table as if she owned the place. “We’re here about the ad in this morning’s Classified section of the Nightshade News.”

  “Thank you for coming,” said the man, nodding toward m
e but still speaking to her. “Are you his agent?”

  I stood next to Cara, blinking. She nodded enthusiastically, like she and the guy were talking the same language. “Yes, it’s his first time so… is there some paperwork to sign?”

  The woman handed over a clipboard and said, “Just the basics, for now. If we’re interested, we’ll have to speak with his parents, of course.”

  “Oh, of course,” Cara said, taking the clipboard and answering a few quick questions for me.

  I stood there, hands in my pockets, watching the two grownups watch me. The man took out a camera and said, “Do you mind… if I take your picture?”

  Before I could answer Cara shoved me closer to the picnic table and said, “Of course he doesn’t mind. That’s why we’re here, sir!”