Creep Street (13 page)

ou watch in awe as the great man belts through another number: this time ‘Viva Las Vegas'. But as he reaches the end he starts to fade again. He begins a third song, ‘Wooden Heart', but he's definitely getting thinner. You think he's going to disappear, right in front of your eyes, but then you realise things are going to be more complicated than that. He slowly reaches out with his right hand as he sings the second verse. It's Stacey that he's reaching to and, to your horror, she reaches out to him. The misty white hand, laden with rings, touches and holds Stacey's solid brown hand. And, right there in front of you, Stacey starts to disappear! Yikes! Horrifying but true—she's starting to fade away. Her arm becomes more and more transparent. Then her body. It's happening so quickly you can't think of what to do. But you've got to do something! In another minute Stacey will be gone: gone with Elvis to some mysterious place from which she may never return! You look around frantically. On the floor of the car is a large bottle of Coke. You don't like wasting Coke but desperate times call for desperate measures. You grab the bottle, shake it up as hard as you can, then take off the lid and aim it at Stacey.

Wow! The effect is sensational. A spray of foam and Coke showers over her. You can hardly see her for a moment. It's like she's having a bubble bath. With fawn-coloured bubbles. They're fizzing and sizzling and dripping all over her. She's coughing and spluttering, trying to wipe them off. But at least she's let go of Elvis' hand. You glance into the back seat. Elvis has completely disappeared. At last Stacey has her eyes open. What a relief. It seems like the worst is over. You sit back smugly, waiting for Stacey's grateful thanks.

But, instead, she screams at you. ‘What did you do that for?' she yells.

‘I saved you,' you answer indignantly.

‘I didn't want to be saved,' she wails.

‘You didn't?'

‘No,' she says. ‘I love Elvis. I'd have gone anywhere with him.'

‘But you don't want to leave here,' you say. ‘Imagine it. You'd have to give up school, and homework, and cleaning your room, and hanging out the washing, and loading the dishwasher, and unloading the dishwasher . . .'

You start to realise why Stacey is so upset.

‘On second thoughts,' you say, ‘any chance of getting Elvis back? Do you think he might take us both?'

ave you ever stood in a butcher's shop and watched the butcher mincing meat? It comes squeezing out from the mincer in long slow red worms that look like spaghetti made of entrails.

Have you ever seen a cook slicing liver? The knife glides through the dark raw meat, as a little blood oozes from it. It feels warm and sticky and soft, as though it's still alive.

Have you ever seen a dead cat on the road, all squishy and red, with bits of its guts coming out its mouth?

And what about in Science, when the teacher gives you a sheep's eye to dissect? As you make the first little nick with the scalpel a grey liquid comes squeezing slowly out. Even as you cut the eye open it still seems to be looking at you.

I think you're getting the idea. I think you're starting to realise how you feel as you see bits of liver and entrails and eyes and blood and guts floating away from you in the moat. Bye bye, Stacey! Bye bye, Mrs Cunningham!

ait just a sec,' you say. ‘My parents have paid for this house, you know. It's cost them a fortune. I reckon I've got as much right to be here as you have.'

Well, now she's really mad. Her eyes are going like hazard lights and steam's coming out of her ears. ‘How dare you,' she squeals. ‘How dare you speak to me like that. It's typical of you younger generation. Don't you have any respect? Why, I must be two hundred years older than you.'

‘You sure look it!' you say rudely.

You get a little nervous then because she gets so angry that her head actually lifts off her shoulders again. ‘You fool,' she screams, ‘you don't know what you're doing. You're dealing with forces way beyond your primitive understanding . . .'

Suddenly bells ring out. ‘What's that?' she gasps. ‘Is it midnight already?'

The sound of the clock striking really scares her. She listens trembling, counting the chimes. There's six of them and, when she realises that, she relaxes again. But the clock gives you an idea. When she turns to you again and starts ranting and raving and threatening, you merely turn to an old clock that's behind you and wind it up. She breaks off her abuse and says suspiciously, ‘What are you doing?'

You don't answer; you turn the hands of the clock to a few seconds before twelve. A moment later the chimes begin. One, two, three. ‘Stop, stop,' she screams. Seven, eight, nine. ‘No, no!' She covers her ears. Ten, eleven, twelve! There's a terrible gurgling howl from Esmerelda, a howl of freezing wind through the attic, and suddenly she's gone.

You and your parents have a good peaceful time living in the old house. Despite the wild stories the neighbours tell you, you're never troubled by ghosts or spirits or poltergeists. There's only one thing your parents don't understand: why you demand to have every clock in the house changed so they strike twelve times every hour. They think you're crazy, but you're so insistent on it that they eventually give in, just for the sake of peace and quiet.

And that's why you all live happily ever after!

orgive us, for we have wronged you,' Stacey cries as she crosses her arms on her chest and goes peacefully to her death. ‘Yes,' echoes her mother, ‘we have been very wicked, and we are getting no more than we deserve.'

They both disappear under the water.

You turn to your mother. ‘So end all evildoers,' you observe.

In the water there is a sudden bubbling and up come bits of intestine and a severed ear, then more shreds of human flesh and globules of bloo . . . oh sorry. I just don't seem able to help myself. Sorry.

uddenly there's a ripping sound above your head and you drop violently, about a metre. You don't have to look, you know what's happening. The rotten old guttering is tearing off above your head. ‘Aaaahhh,' you scream into the wild wind. Why did your parents have to buy this derelict old house? Why couldn't they have bought a nice brick-veneer flat on the ground floor of a nice new building? No, not your parents! They always have to do it the hard way.

There's another great ripping noise and you drop two metres this time. Hey, you just had a good idea! If there's enough guttering along this roof and it keeps tearing off at this rate, it'll lower you to the ground, metre by metre. Sounds good, huh? You might just get out of this alive after all!