Creep Street (10 page)

ou grab the can with one hand, still holding the cross with the other. You point it straight at the little spiders and let fly. The spray drifts over them in a toxic cloud. But they don't even pause! They're still coming at you, as menacing as ever. You back away, but these little critters are quick movers, and you don't know if you'll be able to outrun them. Then you hear Stacey cry out something. It sounds like ‘Fire!' What on earth does she mean? Suddenly you get an idea. Just to your left there's a candle burning in front of a statue. Fire! You drop the cross and grab the candle. You spray the Mortein through it, and yes, right away you have yourself a flame-thrower. You aim it at the spiders and laugh with pleasure at the sight of these evil little monsters shrivelling up and dying. It takes you about three minutes to kill them all but at last they're all dead. Lucky for you, because there's no Mortein left.

All around you are little smouldering cremated spiders. There must be hundreds, maybe thousands of them. Through the smoke you see Stacey. She's staggering to her feet. She comes towards you. You're not sure if maybe you should grab the cross again but she looks pretty normal now. She's smiling and she reaches out and takes your hand.

‘Thank you,' she says.

‘What was that all about?' you ask.

She explains: ‘Years ago my great-great-grandfather looted the tomb of an Egyptian Pharaoh. It was full of these little spiders. They bit him hundreds of times. He recovered, but what no-one realised was that they had laid their eggs under his skin. In time they hatched, and made their homes inside his body. And he passed the affliction on to each new generation. Since then our family has been cursed by the Pharaoh's spiders. They gradually drive people mad.' She shuddered. ‘They make you do the strangest things, behave in the strangest ways. The only cure is the cross and the fire. But it has to be someone who is innocent of the curse, who knows nothing about it, who can save us.' She hugs you. ‘You've saved my life.'

‘Well, that's great,' you say, as your nostrils fill with smoke and a strange red glow starts to envelop the building. ‘But . . . um . . . hadn't we better get out of here before the church burns down?'

ou gradually drift into the most relaxing sleep you've ever had. You seem to sleep for a long time, but it's hard to tell with sleep, of course. You know you do have dreams, lots of wonderful dreams. Especially you dream of your family and your school and your old house, the one you left to come to the new place. And, funnily enough, you dream of Stacey—only in the dreams she's a witch and she's really horrible and all her teeth are long and green and pointy, and she's waving a strange-looking stick and shouting long words at you, words you've never heard before, that don't seem to make any sense.

Then you wake up.

You feel pretty weird, like it's hard to move, like your limbs won't do what you want them to do. You stretch slowly and open your eyes and look around. The car seems colder now and the light is dimmer. You can barely see the shiny brown plastic dashboard or the big black steering wheel. You gaze out the window, feeling a little anxious. ‘What's going on?' you wonder.

It's misty out there but you gradually see someone coming towards the car. It's a man dressed in some kind of Alfoil. Must be on his way to a fancy dress party. He's walking really carefully though, like he's nervous of something. What's he doing on your property? You make your left arm move and you open the door of the car.

As soon as the man sees you he jumps back like he's terrified. What a loony! Must be the local cracker case.

‘Can I help you?' you ask politely.

‘Who . . . who are you?' he stammers.

‘It's our house,' you say. ‘We've just bought this place. Well, at least my parents have.'

The man goes all pale and looks like he's about to faint.

‘But who are you?' he asks again. ‘What is this vehicle, and why are you wearing those strange clothes?'

‘Me?!' you say indignantly. ‘Hey, I'm not the one in the strange clothes. You look like you could bake a chicken in your costume. I mean, sure, you've got a right to wear what you want, but if I had an outfit like . . .'

You've stopped talking. You're standing there staring past him. There's a good reason for that. The mist's just cleared and you're looking at your own house. Or rather, where your house used to be. Now there's no sign of it. Not a trace. Not a brick, not a splinter of wood, not a pot plant, not even a pair of undies hanging on the line. It's gone. Totally utterly completely absolutely entirely wholly undeniably gone. Eradicated. Vamoosed. Disappeared. Gone.

In other words, it's not there any more.

In its place is a black dome that is about the size of a footy oval.

Now you're the one who might faint.

‘Er, do you mind telling me what you've done with my house?' you ask.

‘You don't live here,' he says.

‘Oh yes, I do,' you answer.

‘Oh no, you don't.'

‘Oh yes, I do.'

‘Oh no, you don't.'

‘Oh yes, I do.'

‘Oh no, you don't.'

This goes on for about five minutes, until you get sick of it and say: ‘Listen, wise guy, if I don't live here, who does?'

‘I am not the wise guy,' he says. ‘I can take you to the wise guy tomorrow. Maybe he will explain this mystery.'

This is the final straw. ‘Where am I?' you shout, in total frustration.

‘231 Cherrywood Drive.'

‘Well, thank goodness for that,' you say. ‘I was getting worried about the state of my head. And this wise guy, who's he?'

‘I cannot tell you about the wise guy. He may choose to tell you himself. Or he may not.'

‘And that would be tomorrow, correct?'

‘Correct.'

‘Tomorrow, being Tuesday, correct?'

‘Correct.'

‘Tuesday the sixteenth, correct?'

‘Correct.'

‘The sixteenth of May, right?'

‘That's right.'

You hardly dare ask the next question but you know you have to.

‘The sixteenth of May, 1996, right?'

‘Wrong,' he says. ‘The sixteenth of May, 3014.'

‘Oh no!' you scream. ‘That Stacey! Wait till I get my hands on her!'

esperately you grab the handle of the door. You almost wrench it off getting out of there but, to your relief, it opens. You stumble outside and run up the path as fast as you can, not even looking back. Then you get a brilliant idea. You keep running, all the way up to the house. You know exactly what you want, but because there are still unpacked boxes everywhere it takes a few minutes to find it. At last you have it in your hand: your mother's video camera. You rush back down the path, hoping you're not too late. There's the car and yes, to your relief it's still rocking and rolling, and that pink glow is as strong as ever.

You press ‘record' on the camera and move up to the windscreen. You aim the camera. Through the viewfinder you see Stacey. She's still swaying happily, lost in her love of Elvis. In the back seat there's the King himself, belting through another song. It sounds like ‘Jailhouse Rock'. Now the car's just about shaking itself apart. You're getting some great footage. But twenty seconds later Elvis hits the final chord on the guitar, there's a great explosion of white smoke and he disappears.

It doesn't matter, though. When you check that twenty seconds of film you find it's perfect. You send it to Channel 9 news. Within twenty-four hours it's flashed around the world, to every TV channel on the planet. It's the biggest news story of the year. Soon the tourists are flocking to your house. It becomes a shrine to Elvis, as big as Graceland, even bigger. You and Stacey and both your families work full-time running it. Elvis never returns, but what do you care? You've become incredibly rich, famous, and you don't even have to go to school! What more could life possibly offer?!

t that moment Stacey turns around. ‘STOP!' she screams, when she sees you pressing the button. ‘NO!'

You don't know why she's so upset, but then you get a rough idea. The bridge she and her mother are standing on starts wobbling. Both Stacey and her mother try to run off it. Unfortunately for them Stacey tries to run towards the castle and her mother tries to run towards you. They crash into each other. At that moment the bridge falls apart completely. It just disintegrates. Bits of it rain down into the water. Stacey and her mum rain down into the water too, screaming wildly as they fall. Away to your left and also to your right there's a sudden disturbance of water. What could it be? Could it be . . .? Could it possibly be . . .? Yes, it could! Those ugly big snouts sticking out of the water and those big reptilian tails kicking up spray . . . it's four huge crocodiles, and they are charging straight at the two people in the water.

The next sixty seconds are not pretty. No reader would want them described. What's that? I'm sorry, can you say that again? I think I must have misheard you. You do want them described? Ohmigod, what kind of sicko person are you? Are you quite sure about this?